Visual Artist Dan Lish
Q: What is the significance of art to you? How old were you when you decided to pursue what you do as a career?
A: Our lives should be treated as our own piece of art. A beautiful tapestry.
I’m grateful to be able to express myself through the medium of my artwork. I have a foggy memory as a young boy of approximately three or four years old, drawing huge whales with minuscule Scuba divers. That progressed to Dinosaurs and so on. My father introduced me to ink pens at around seven or eight years old, and so the journey progressed.
Q: What is Egostrip? Where did the idea come from?
A: Egostrip is a self initiated project that started on my train journey from Brighton to London. Organically in the way it started as a thank you to Paradise Grey (X Clan), Pete Rock, and Rakim for showcasing and speaking on my work.
I created illustrations of them, but featuring the artists in a relaxed, creative mode. When a human is ‘in the zone’ it is like they're a conduit for something bigger. I wanted to explore this theme, but with Hip Hop artists that influenced me through the years, and to see what’d happen in those couple of hours on my commute.
Q: What do you like most about illustration? Why?
A: As long as I keep the vision of where the light is coming from (usually top down) and I have a piece of paper and a black pen, it’s a self soothing, cathartic experience for me to create a vision or to explore a stream of consciousness within black line. It can get quite meditative at times. The exterior world disappears whilst I draw. The tactile nature is very important to me. It’s very healthy for a human to use their hands and imagination. It is our gift that often gets neglected.
Q: Do you like working with colors or black and white more? Why?
A: I love color, but over the last six years have focused on black and white. Presently; due to my time and energy, I choose to draw in ink pen, then after scanning the drawing, I digitally colour them in Photoshop. However, I will be making an effort to return to traditional painting via oils and watercolour. It puts me in the same comfortable, beautiful place when i paint, so the experience is similar to that of ink drawing. Working in traditional methods within the context of colour is incredibly subtle and challenging. ink cross hatching was originally used and adapted as an early printing technique, so can be fairly crude and aggressive in its method. I’m open to it all really. I just have to give myself the time to experiment in colour again.
Q: If you had to stick to drawing one “genre”, example being music or comics or covers, what would you choose?
A: That’s an interesting question. When I think about it, my work crosses many genres of all that was mentioned. I think venturing into fantastical realms, exploring the hidden, mixed with our reality. If i could pop myself in a category, it would be fantasy art for large paintings that could be used for cover work. It’s all in the usage I guess and the willingness to let your art be used for the use of commerce.
Q: What do you like the most about collaborating with different artists?
A: To be honest, I rarely collaborate with other artists. For some reason it has not really happened in the last twenty years. Before, when I was creating Graffiti art, we would have a loose crew that would paint together. The closest I came to a partnership was with my old friend Phil ’Slyde’ R.I.P. We would paint together on walls, as well as Neequaye Dsane aka Dreph, dancing and painting together. My good friend and sometimes creative project partner, Dan (unbox industries vinyl toy maker) would come up with the idea and I would visually create it, be it a comic book story, vinyl toy idea or exhibition.
Q: Approximately how long does it take for you to complete a piece?
A: It depends on the size of the illustration and complexity. A5 (5,8 x 8.3 inches) will be roughly two hours. A4 (8.3 x 11.7 inches) = four to six hours. A3 (11.7 x 16.5 inches) = eight to twelve hours. Any larger would roughly be fourteen to twenty- four hours.
That’s not including the digital colouring or watercolour. Photoshop colouring would be two to six hours depending on the size. Ink and Wash (watercolour) depending on the size, would be from four to ten hours.
Q: What do your drawing sessions consist of? How often do you live stream?
A: I should live stream more often, but it is time and energy that’s needed. Sometimes I make a special effort to focus on an IG live session. Fifty percent of that time will get cut off due to poor internet connection or I will get cut off due to music copyright. Very annoying. If i play an old Bronx or B-Beat Mixtape whilst drawing, that doesn’t happen. Shouts to Jorun Bombay or Aidan Leacy for their mixes. If a live stream is going well, it will consist of the drawing coming together, chatting about my process and what I am trying to achieve, lot’s of interaction and good music playing.
Q: Do you think social media plays a role in your career? If so how?
A: I have got a strange relationship with social media. It has greatly helped get my work out all over the world. But yet I am aware there’s a balance. A balance of what we choose to give our energy, time and focus too. Or devices/screen time, if we are not careful: is extremely addictive So I treat it like sweets/candy, a little bit now and then.
Q: How do recent events, music, movies, and character play a role in your artwork?
A: They do not play too much of a role in my art, as the overarching/underlying theme of my work is where we have come from, what we are here for and where we are going. Including the etheric hidden nature of our reality and Self Sovereignty, exploring the bigger picture of our reality, the esoteric mixed with the Exoteric. All these subtle but huge themes play a role in my work. Sometimes there is a spillage in a movement or meme that may subconsciously/consciously be featured in my artwork, but it does not happen a lot. This is due to the over-standing that much of what is thrust upon us is manufactured or may have an agenda behind it. The longer I am here, the more I base myself in the now, in nature (that we are all apart off) and great mystery of our existence.