Vol.120_Faye Moorhouse
FAYE MOORHOUSE
from Hastings, United Kingdom.
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Interviewed by Oh Jiyoung
On your website you have introduced yourself in a sentence "I love to paint stories; usually strange, unusual and darkly humorous narratives featuring beautifully ugly beings." Which was very impressive. Can you please introduce yourself a bit more?
My name is Faye Moorhouse and I am a British artist/ illustrator based down on the south coast in Hastings. I make paintings and self published zines which I sell through my online shop and I also work on commercial illustration projects for magazines, and publishers. So I’m lucky to have a nice balance between self initiated and commissioned work.
There are a lot of animals such as dogs and cats in your works. Is there a particular reason why a lot of animals are featured in the work?
I don’t enjoy being around other people too much, but I love spending time with animals. I grew up with cats, guinea pigs, rabbits etc. but always desperately wanted a dog. We got our dog Bear around three years ago and it’s made me love animals even more, I’m fascinated by their behavior and the way they communicate. My dream is to live on a tiny farm with lots of animals in the middle of nowhere.
Are there any other characters that you frequently draw besides drawing an animal and what would it be? How do you characterize your motifs? (and does social issues often appear in your work?)
Apart from drawing animals I really enjoy drawing nude humans. Perhaps it’s because I like drawing in their body hair or maybe it’s because I’m bad at drawing clothes, who knows!
There are many series of works such as ‘True love’, ‘Yellow paintings’, ‘Human portraits’, ‘Attacks’ Are you working on something new these days or are you interested on existing series? what are you interested at the most?
Working on series is something I love doing. I just get really obsessed with drawing the same things over and over again, I’ve been drawing beast attacks for years now and it never gets old for me, everyone else is probably bored sick of looking at them!
What do you think is most important when drawing?
The most important thing is not to overthink it. I find that my best pieces are made at times when I’m not really thinking about what I’m going to make. For me it’s also important to just keep drawing all the time, you’ve got to get out all the shit for the good stuff to come through.
I know it's hard to define, but what do you think of art?
I think art is confusing and scary for a lot of people who haven’t grown up around it. I’m one of those people! I still find going to galleries and private views very intimidating, I find art hard to talk about or understand in any great depth. I suppose for me it’s a feeling, and that’s what I’d like people to get from my art; a feeling.
What is the most important thing to you now?
At the moment I’m trying to stop worrying about everything so much and focus on all of the small, simple things I enjoy in life. It’s difficult, and something I’ll probably be working on forever!
What do you normally do in your spare time?
I really love walking the dog, spending time sitting in front of the fire and growing things in the garden.
What is your plan for this year? Any plans for visiting Korea for an exhibition?
I’d love to visit Korea one day! But for this year I’m planning to continue working on my art; I’d love to make more large-scale paintings and I also want to write and illustrate a picture book (and get it published!).