Inspired by 90’s cartoons, street artists, and game designers, Angus Smith is an emerging illustrator and graphic designer. In our latest spotlight, Angus talks his inspiration and gives us a heads up for his upcoming SALA exhibition.

Q: Hello Angus! Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

A: Hey! I’m a 22 year old Illustrator / Graphic Designer from Adelaide, I specialise in character design, street art and creating unique products with my artwork. I’ve been drawing all my life but have found a solid digital method to stick to over the last two years.

Q: Who inspires you? What inspires your art?

A: I think that a lot of my interests inspire my art. Whether it be the cartoons I watched when I was a kid, the video games I’ve played or the creative upbringing my parents are largely responsible for, these all have played a big role in my artistic career. Street artists/crews such as ARYZ, The Weird Crew, Rabbit Eye Movement and ETAM Cru have inspired me to add to the plethora of street art already here in Adelaide. Finally, Musketon is a vector artist who let me see what mastery of Adobe Illustrator can look like, so I owe him a great deal of respect for what he techniques he displays in his work.

Q: Do you have a preferred medium?

A: My medium involves a pencil and paper, an eraser, a mobile phone camera and my laptop / graphics tablet. The minimal amount of materials I need for my art makes it very cheap, consistent and doesn’t require any upkeep.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I’d say my style was a mix of western animation visuals with new age street art, using shapes to guide my artwork and adjusting angles within my pieces to create movement and flow on the page or screen.

Q: Can you please describe your artistic and creative process i.e.: from lingering idea to putting it into practice?

A: I basically start every artwork by drawing simple shapes and lines to figure out where the negative area in my piece will sit. I was educated in graphic design so many of my artworks follow the design principles quite strictly at times. So after I’ve drawn a rough sketch, I will go over the top with a softer pencil and thicken lines to suit the feel of the piece.

After I’m happy with my sketch (and sometimes even when the sketch is unfinished) I will take a photo of it with my phone and bring it up on my mac, I then jump into Illustrator and I will use the pen tool to trace my linework, sometimes changing positioning, line width and even the composition to suit my digital style better.

I often colour the piece in Illustrator but do delve into the effects that Photoshop offers as well as textural images from Google, using the internet as much as I can to add to the character of my art.

Q: Where do you see your art practice taking you in the next five years?

 

A: I would love to get into game design, animation, more street art and also education. I believe digital art isn’t given the chance in schools today and with more and more of our world turning to digital, why would art be any different? I remember in university using the computer to design things was seen as a bad thing, however I think it’s an incredible ability that all kids should learn.

Q: If you could recommend one artist, who would it be, and why?

A: That’s a very stacked question, so I’ll just go with who I’m really digging at the moment. It’d have to be a tie between Jordi Ros and Dobu Haishen, they’re both unbelievablely talented artists who are definitely worth checking out. Jordi Ros creates surreal characters with huge amounts of emotive qualities within them and Dobu Haishen’s attention to deal in all of his pieces is incredible.

Q: What is your favourite gallery and why?

A: Instagram, it’s the most amazing place to search, view and find the best artists in the world. Especially the digital work that I love the most.

Q: Where can we find more of your work (social media, personal website, current exhibitions, etc.)?

A: ANGUTS on Facebook
@angvs on Instagram
anguts.com

And I will be hosting a SALA exhibition from the 2nd to the 30th of August at Jack Ruby on King William Street with @me_gg and @gerald_aus.

Our art will be for sale the whole of the month, the launch night will kick off at 6.30pm if you’d love to come down for a drink and see the artworks first.

Q: Has technology made art better?

A: Better is a subjective term, I am sure there are many artists who will always stick with their oils and their charcoals, however technology has created hundreds many even thousands of new styles so to say it hasn’t improved art as a whole would be foolish.