#lukedrozd

Case File: 1011202001

Code Name: Are You Sure I Was There?

Comments: Everywhere I look (Moof and It’s Psychedelic Baby) I keep seeing and reading about the British Folk scene. Digging yesterday, my attention was arrested by a LP cover for the British band The Left Outsides. An investigation insued. (The Left Outsides are past members of Eighteenth Day of May). TLO are Mark Nicholas and Alison Cotton, a wife and husband duo based in London, England. I gave their latest recording a go. My cultural point of reference, hints of Pink Floyd (Others are saying Nico, Velvet Underground, or 1960’s Greewich Village coffee shop). If you are into what appears to be pure folk then let me pass this to you for  hit. Now about that cover art credit. Luke Drozd is a well known gig poster artist. He was an A-lister in the 2009 book by Canadian Author/Curator Clay Hayes called “Gig Posters Volume I: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century”. I have always thought that first volume was the cream and volume two was the minor leagues. Luke Drozd has created three record covers this year for TLO and related projects (all included here). He gave some inside the other day on his IG page about the creation of “Are You Sure I Was There”. LD says, “The image is a collage made from a torn up and reconfigured children’s painting, with added elements by me. The overall feel of the design was meant to feel like an old Bloomsbury Group catalogue.” Final shot, LD has a very interesting book on hock, Can You Make The Band Name Bigger?. It is 15 years of his gig poster work. 210 full color pages (210 x 317 x 20mm translated American as roughly letter/copier size paper.) When funds are flowing, the intention over here is to purchase. Leave me one, ok, thanks.

Notes:

https://theleftoutsides.bandcamp.com

https://theleftoutsides.tumblr.com

Find TLO in all the usual places - Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, etc.

Luke Drozd:

http://lukedrozd.com

https://lukedrozd.bigcartel.com

Instagram:

7th of March. Briefing. Guest Lecturer, Luke Drozd. Today we were visited by Luke Drodz, a London based Contemporary Artist and Illustrator. Here are the following notes I obtained throughout his talk. - Throughout his work he has found that his illustrations tend to draw from his fine art background (graduated Leeds Metropolitan university in 2003 with a degree in fine art) but can deviate from this heavily.  - A wide amount of his contemporary artwork is created through random objects he has collected over his life varying from used chewing gum to plastic animals. This creates a sense of time and personality within the pieces and poses the fact that these personal artefacts will exist far longer than their user thus questioning the overall fragility of humanity.  - His best pieces usually aren't what he set out to create. - Usually has no idea why he creates a piece and discovers the meaning years later or never at all.  I really enjoyed this lecture and the work displayed by Drozd due to its strong humorous aesthetics and simple narratives/meaning. I have found that sometimes in galleries (and with some of the work I have produced) too much meaning is contorted into one small item and thus the viewing becomes very heavy on the viewer. Although sometimes this effect is well received and effective simple pieces such as the work of Drozd are a breath of fresh air. My personal favourite piece he showed us was entitled 'Elenganza' (pictured above) which was constructed from a horned animal skull (presumably a deer of some sort) and pink-ish ribbons hung from its horns. Drozd stated that his inspiration for this came from the overall masculine qualities of the skull, feeling it would be humorous to hang feminine objects from the horns as they would then contrast and represent a girls bikes handlebars almost. I really like this approach due to the battle of gender infused within the work but how it has been playfully executed. I also found this visit useful due to Drozds band poster illustrations and other customer focused works as seeing these allowed me to see at possible careers await if I do indeed follow a more illustrative path. Overall this visit was very enjoyable to me as a viewer as the works shown strongly impacted me, especially with their light hearted approaches, making me feel that, in the future, I should embrace accidents more and be less controlling about the work I produce (this could apply greatly to my deconstruction work right now...) as by buggering something up I may in fact produce a far better outcome than originally intended.