London Retrospective: Blood and acrylic on watercolour card 335mm × 254mm – 2007
My name is?
Marcus Fearon.
What is art for?
Art means different things to different people, so my truth won’t necessarily be your truth. I see my art as a journey of my own personal self discovery, it’s really my own adventure, growing up and experiencing life, I find the process of creating art therapeutic and challenging, but I enjoy it as it pushes me. I started out with a simple theme for my artworks, so that my artistic voice would develop naturally along with my life’s experiences.
Which types of media do you work in?
I like to experiment with different mediums, at present I use a variety of materials from acrylic paint, spray paint, to blood (to name a few) which I use in the One Blood series. This series is an experiment as a young black man to understand myself and how I fit into my environment; it is about my anger against the stabbings and gun crime shown in London and other areas in the UK. The medium of blood is very fluid, which makes it difficult to control, but this is like life and our thoughts. One could argue that thought is always changing, your physical body sheds and rebuilds itself, what you see as reality will become a memory. By trying to capture and hold onto your thoughts you lose it, the original thought changes its form into something different either positive or negative. This series of work is also about celebrating being in the moment of thought.
Who or what was your first artistic influence?
Unfortunately it wasn’t Art Attack… but it was my secondary school teachers during my GCSE and A-Levels; Mr. Chatterton and Mrs. Ulrich they both where passionate about art and they recognized this in me also, they were key in helping me develop a subject I enjoyed and I owe them a lot.
And your most recent?
Some of the people who have influenced me range from Donald Judd, Herzog & de Meuron, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Chuck Close to Banksy to name a few.
Are you in it for the money?
I used to work in various sales jobs for the money, and I was coming home unhappy, stressed, drained and frustrated that I wasn’t doing what I was passionate about. I learnt the hard way that you’ve got to be selfish and so do what you enjoy, today. So I’m in Art for the pleasure I get out creating the art, everything else is a bonus.
Politeness or rudeness, which do you prefer?
Politeness, always.
