Now Michael's heart's in art! (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Now Michael's heart's in art!

8:32am Tuesday 19th May 2009 in

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Bradford-based writer Michael Stewart turned his hand to computerised artwork less than a year ago.

But already the Huddersfield University lecturer’s work has been used by Bradford’s Voltage Records for CD covers by The Sneaky Peeks and by London’s Fleshpot Theatre. Last year he completed illustrations for a projected children’s book The Day Death Died.

Now from June 5, an exhibition of Michael’s quirky, darkly humorous pictures will be held at Thornton’s Square Chapel Gallery.

Michael, who is better known as a playwright and director of the Huddersfield Literary Festival, said: “The drawings, which are made with pen and ink, started off really as doodles. I call them ‘Head Spam’ because it is often the spam in your head you need to get out before you can start writing.

“I found it a good way to free up writing head space, but as the drawings developed I noticed they were often images inspired by my writing or, conversely, the images ended up becoming a piece of writing: dream images, nightmare visions, with a blackly comic tone.

“My writing office is very small. I don’t have a studio, so out of necessity the work begins on an A4 sheet. Then I scan them in and I can mess about with them. One of my favourite tools is the one which allows me to turn the images into negatives so that the ink is white and the paper black. Once I’m happy with them, I send them to a fine art printer. I finish them as monoprints of any size I require.

“I like the irony of using a process designed for mass production to produce an original, but I think that also comes from writing. With writing it is never the original you are selling, it is always a reproduction. You sell your work, but you still have it. I’ve never quite got my head round how artists are willing to part with their work so readily. I can’t bring myself to do it.”

“They are images I’ve made mostly to amuse myself. I suppose it’s outsider art. I’m not trained as an artist, although I did spend some time as an apprentice in a drawing office and did get some draughtsman training. I loved the way those blokes would obsess about a particular typeface or the thickness of a line. I loved that nerdy attention to detail,” he added.

• Michael Stewart’s show at the Square Chapel Gallery starts on June 5. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, from noon to 3pm.