THE BIGGER PICTURE

Duncan Barry interviews Chris Bianchi, a Maltese artist whose passion and dedication have brought him recognition in the UK creative industry.

You are a hand-drawn, loose and cartoon artist. How did you get here? What drove you to move out of Malta?

Ever since I was diagnosed with dyslexia in my young days I never got on with words. I turned to drawing instead, Iron Maiden posters at the time. Eventually, after going to Odysee, a ‘self-made’ art school, I decided it was time to go to the UK and get a proper art education. At first I felt strange since I had never been to an art class before.

Most of the other students attending this course had been studying art ever since they were at school. After seeing my work, my tutor suggested I was more of an illustrator and that is where it all started, focusing on the drawings and visual communication side of things. This would have never happened if I had stayed in Malta, although I do believe there are more opportunities for young Maltese artists these days. However, I still think one needs to go overseas at one point in time to get a better understanding of what’s out there.

Chris Bianchi

You have been assigned work for brands such as Levis, HP, Channel 4 you name it, and have been at it for a good number of years now. How do you stay ahead of the game in your creations?

It’s important to have your own agenda and your own fully formed world or language. This is what clients are after most of the time. I guess this means working at your drawing even in-between various projects. You want people to look at your work and go ‘oh that’s a Chris Bianchi piece of art’ straight away. However, there’s no harm in adopting a few different styles that show I can work on different types of projects, but still having a give-away in each piece to show the drawing is mine.

Cover for the Rough Trade 40th anniversary book

Can you mention some prominent artists you worked with?

Collaborating with other artists is something I like doing. Only last year I was asked by The Prodigy to do some test drawings for their new album and they ended up using a photograph. This was a strange one as the label didn’t give us access to the music beforehand, so it was harder to interpret and felt like pot luck. On the other hand, myself and Le Gun, an artist collective I work closely with, were asked to do some background drawings for a live concert by Madness to launch ‘the Liberty of Norton Folgate’ album. Working with them was great as we had access to their music and we spent time socialising with Chas Smash who in turn shared his ideas with us.

Levi's jacket

I also do a lot of work for smaller labels such as Faith and Industry which is run by a guy who is half Maltese. The artist is John Johanna. This was more intimate and both me and the artist spent over six months exchanging ideas and music. I also started a magazine called Le Gun (www.legun.co.uk) which featured loads of prominent artists such as Peter Blake, Tomi Ungerer, Robert Rubbish, and Henri Chopin, to mention a few.

How do you approach major projects in a bid to satisfy your clients’ needs? Can you mention a piece of work that was more fulfilling than others?

For most of the big advertising jobs, you must stick to the script they give you and you are almost the last piece in the puzzle, so it’s straightforward. Then you have clients who don’t know what they want, which is tougher. I think listening to what they have to say always helps, and if they have a visual reference even better, however, it’s very rare you are given a freehand to do whatever you want. A recent job was to create a beer can for Brew Dog. It was great as I could do whatever my heart desired, so I linked it to a series I was doing – a personal project called ‘Bonkers Gardens’. It’s good to have a mix of personal and commercial work.

If you were to pinpoint a creation of yours that really made a hit, what would that be and for which brand was it for?

With Le Gun, I drew a cat on the front of a t-shirt upside down for Duffer of St George; there were quite a few re-runs of this t-shirt. We would work on one drawing at the same time and after a while we started making the objects we were drawing to the point where we would draw a room with all its contents, then start building the room. ‘The Unknown Room’ was born – a five-square-metre room – where everything in it was painted, from the frames on the wall, to furniture we bought and painted white. This turned into a show and it was first exhibited at the Brussels art fair, followed by exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, and London. I’d say this was one of the most successful pieces I worked on to date. But unfortunately, no one ever bought it and because it was bulky we had to get rid of it, the walls and floor becoming the walls of a studio and the furniture went off to various friends and galleries for safe-keeping.

Le Gun, The Unknown Room

Cafe de Flore, Paris show

Stylist magazine editorial for Lily Allen

What has changed over the years in terms of techniques, especially with ever-increasing technology?

Luckily, when I started out, email was the new thing and a blessing, being able to send images instantly is amazing and it also means I can work from wherever I am. In the past you would speak over the phone with an art director, then have a courier pass by a few times until the work is ready to be delivered to the client.

LAST YEAR I WAS ASKED BY THE PRODIGY TO DO SOME TEST DRAWINGS FOR THEIR NEW ALBUM AND THEY ENDED UP USING A PHOTOGRAPH AT THE END

The use of emails also meant that you could engage with clients easily and your website serves as your shop. A lot of people are turning to drawing directly on tablets now which I’ve not yet tried out properly, but this would make it even faster to get work done as it eliminates the scanning and vectorising of images. I do like the feeling of drawing on paper though, so I don’t see myself getting a tablet anytime soon. Then, there is Instagram which I tried to avoid using as I am not too keen on how it works, but eventually I had to get an account too as I felt I needed a platform to showcase my work. Clients don’t seem to look at websites any more or only do so once they’ve come across your work on Instagram.

Brew Dog can design