Phil James enjoys painting explicit images of a hentai pornographic nature, that is, cartoons of young women covered in semen – with a twist. A bit of humour thrown in here and there, things taken to their hyperbolic limits, jokes pushed perhaps a little bit too far. It’s not for the light-hearted or the queasy, but it’s entertaining as all hell. With a mixture of skate imagery, street art, manga, Tokyo, design, pop art, and other things cropping up as influences, James employs an ironic and sophisticated black humour to carry his provocative and often disturbing work.

His latest show is being displayed at Ray Hughes Gallery in Surry Hills alongside Hiroshige’s famous erotic Shunga woodcuts from Japan. Clementine Blackman spoke with him about the juxtaposition of the historical eroticism and the contemporary pornographic irony, among other things, including being discovered in a back alleyway. Read on.

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+ What are the best 3 things you’ve done with yourself thus far in your life apart from learning to conquer morning glory?
> Hang gliding, drawing, giving in to Evening Glory.

+ Wow, where did you hang glide? What’s it like to have wings for a day?
> A mate and I did it up in Newcastle. We started out on Stockton Dunes and eventually ended up going off a cliff around Merriweather. It was truly insane, very scary, you get an overwhelming sense of responsibility for your own life. I highly recommend it!

+ How old are you?
> 33.

+ You don’t look a day over 26. Have you had any formal training in visual arts? What inspired you to create?
> BFA from The National Art School. Always inspired by cartoons, Mad Magazine (Mort Drucker), Skate graphics, particularly Jim Phillips for Santa Cruz, and the Powell/Peralta Graphics.

+ Did you skate or was it just the images you were into?
> Yeah I’ve always skated, I wouldn’t say I’m awesome at it or anything, but I enjoy just cruising around. The images were a major drawcard though.

+ What attracted you to anime?
> I grew up on cartoons like Astroboy, Kimba and Battle of the Planets (which was a seriously kick-ass cartoon). Also I lived in Tokyo for about one and a half years. I stumbled onto the manga porn one day in a little news agency, and my love affair grew from there… It’s pretty rad.

+ Using the street as a medium has been your trademark for how long?
> Initially I started doing paste-ups (postering) in about 2001 under a different name. I guess I was originally inspired by Shepard Fairey’s work and the OBEY campaign. I restarted early 2009 after a few years’ hiatus as “Philjames“.

+ What did you do during your ‘hiatus’?
> Well I painted most of the time. I guess it was a time of just exploring different mediums. I just tried out lots of different angles; I was a bit lost in a lot of ways, just in terms of direction and trying to figure out the “art world”. Still haven’t worked that last one out!

+ Tell me about Design Festa in 2008, what’s it all about – how did you get there?
> Design Festa is a massive Art and Design event held at the Tokyo Big Sight. It’s pretty cool, they have performances and just heaps of people rock up in weird stuff. It’s a big creative event. Basically you pay to exhibit there. So that’s how I got involved: cash!

+ What was the vibe there compared to other more dealer/gallery-based art fairs?
> It’s really sort of all over the place. It’s very laid back and everyone is there for the same reason pretty much, so they’re all very approachable. It’s just good fun and good chance to meet and get drunk with like minded people. I’ve never actually been to any major Art Fairs, is that bad?

+ No, it kind of makes you a purist. Do you drink a lot of water?
> No, but I drink a lot of Fanta.

+ Who was the most interesting person you met in that melting pot?
> Well I don’t know about the most interesting but I met Takashi Murakami at the Geisai Art Fair which he organises, that was pretty cool.

+ What initially pushed you to the street?
> A few things. It’s a good buzz sticking work up and seeing how it evolves over time, whether people destroy it, bomb it, or steal it. I stick them up on routes I usually take to work, so it kind of decorates my travel, kind like an extension of my living room. Another reason is I was just frustrated with the state of the art world as I knew it.

Success seems to governed by red dots on the wall as opposed to the quality of the work – that’s how I saw it anyway. Also everyone seems to be an expert on the subject, saying things like, ‘man you should be painting this’, or, ‘if you want to make a living you should be painting that’, so  I just thought ‘Fuck it, you know what? I’m gonna make what I want, put it up on the street and forget all this shit.’ So I did, and it’s been really good fun.

+ Who are your icons?
> There are so many, so here goes: Frank Frazetta, Jim Phillips, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Looney Tunes, Walt Disney, Jeff Koons, Todd Schorr, Hayao Miyazaki, Perry Farrell, Angus Young, man, heaps… there’s great stuff everywhere!

+ Do you have nightmares?
> No, but I have really fucked up dreams now and again. I also have sleep tourettes! It’s really embarrassing sometimes.

+ Is it just swearing or do you confess dark secrets?
> I confess dark secrets.

+ Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
> Both.

+ Your work seems to draw from childhood, but it’s distorted with violence, sex and money. Explain?
> Hmmm…I guess I’m a child in my mind, living in an adult world.

+ Did the audience interaction – the destruction of your work – improve or destroy it do you think?
> It definitely improved it! It was cool to see people engaging with it. That was the whole point. I photograph it and see what happens next. One cool thing that happened was getting bombed by a graffer [Ed note. When another graffiti artist paints over your work], and when I went to clean it off the next day, someone had already done it. So that was a real turning point for me. Very cool.

+ What is your mother like?
> Conservative, funny, creative.

+ Do you think she cleaned it off?
> I think she bombed it.

+ What are some of the other things people have done when interacting with your art?
> Gasping, Laughing, Nodding silently, exasperation. All the good things.

+ Who would you cite as influences in your life/work?
> My late Uncle Ross, My late Nanna, my family, especially my brother, I always used to copy his stuff and steal his things. They always seemed so much cooler than mine.

+ What does your brother do now?
> He works for Fairfax.

+ Why do you have such a strong attraction to animated imagery when you are expressing adult ideas?
> I guess I’m just geared that way. I suppose it also acts as a kind of distraction, as do the colours, for the briefest moment. It’s great to see people clue in to what’s actually happening: that’s when the previously mentioned reactions occur.

+What’s your favourite thing to do you do when people don’t get it?
> Shrug.

+ What are your trade tools?
> Cans, blades, paint, brushes, comics, porn, sci-fi books.

+ What do you paint on?
> Either old paintings, or if it’s a stencil I use MDF, which is pretty sturdy.

+ The raw minced wood surface of the MDF makes the rich pastels of your paints edible. I also love the frames. Who does your framing?
> Jim Croft Studios in Bondi Junction. I’d be nowhere without Can and Rod up there. Awesome guys, and good for a cool drink if you catch them at the right time.

+ Why the gold frames?
> I really love the almost crassness of the gold frame. It’s kind of ultra-framed. It’s kitsch, but it has the idea of a masterpiece. So it’s fun to present this kind of imagery in such a serious looking frame.

+ What do you eat for breakfast?
> Cigarettes.

+ Butts and all?
> Who told you I eat butts? Hehe.

+ There must be some things you slip in to your images that you know you’re doing for a particular reaction. What about the oversize penis worm?
> The penis worm would be nothing without the freshly milked looking teets and the happy little face. It’s taking familiar things and tweaking them a little so that it warrants the second take.

+ What do you think is the core responsibility of a contemporary artist?
> Doing work that’s true to yourself, and doing it well.

+ What about social commentary?
> I think it’s necessary to be of ones’ time; hence the undertones of sex, violence, and money.

+ What do you think is the audience’s responsibility?
> To keep an open mind.

+ Do you prefer verbose disdain or blank intolerance?
> Maybe verbose disdain. At least this way there’s been some level of engagement, though reaction does reflect some kind of blank intolerance…

+ When did you first draw?
> I guess around four or five.

+ And when did you first realize you were good at it and start subverting the basic image?
> It’s such a gradual thing. You have little breakthroughs along the way and it just develops. It’s kind of like hair-loss – you don’t just wake up bald one day, it happens over the course of years.

+ “For those who it processes,” Leunig wrote, “television is a machine like a meat grinder of souls; and what it destroys, it replaces with crude, synthetic substitutes for life and personal truth”. Agree or Disagree?
> No, I love TV. My work’s more about my Libido and sexuality in general. I’m not interested in bashing the obvious capitalist targets of the world. I think my work is quite playful, actually.

+ Are you saying these images stem from your sexual subconscious?
> Well I suppose they come from somewhere, and hey, I think sex is a great thing. I usually find myself having fun during it and I doubt I’m alone there.

+ I guess that’s what the evening glory is. Do you think the juvenile aspect to some of your characters is a sensitive topic to explore sexually?
> It may be sensitive but the sexualisation of juveniles is a burning subject at the moment, and I can’t see it disappearing anytime soon as it’s such a massive money-spinner for a lot of industries. Its that whole ‘tween’ industry, you can see it in any major department store or newsagency. I just present it differently, maybe even more honestly.

+ Banksy said “When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires.” The queues for his Summer Show in June 2009 went around the block for Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. What is your take on this?
> As I said, I don’t view my work as an attack on the mainstream, and you don’t need commercial viability to get your voice out there. In terms of Banksy, good on him.

+ Your show at Ray Hughes Gallery is pitching your work alongside internationally renowned 19^th century Shunga artist Hiroshige. What do you think the tension is between his work and yours?
> Well far out, firstly he’s a guru. To be honest I think his work is dirtier than mine, and his was actually porn for its time. I think mine is taking what that foundation developed, and I’ve made into a kind of personal experience. I think there’s both some psychology behind it and a little bit of humour to wash it down.

+ What’s the thrust of the joke in your own words?
> It’s visual.

+ Were you inspired by his work or is it kind of fresh to you?
> It’s actually pretty fresh to me. But as I said, that work is the basis for a lot of sexual imagery at our disposal in these times.

+ Your senses of humour are eerily similar, or are you telling a different story?
> I can’t be sure…

+ Ok. What I mean is, do you think people’s attitude to sex and sense of humour nowadays bears resemblances to what he did?
> I think his work was more of a how-to for its time. I think mine contains more of a social commentary. So much has changed in the few hundred years between his time and ours. Of course there are always parallels but there are so many more social, technological, and economic aspects at play in our time.

+ How did the gallery find you or did you find them?
> I actually put an image up in the alleyway behind the Gallery there, not with any intention of being picked up, but because it’s a good little spot, out the way but it gets a lot of traffic. Just a nice little nook. It gets hit quite a lot by street artists. Anyway I walked past one day there was a business card stuck in the frame. It was from Ray Hughes Gallery so I called them, we had a chat here we are. It was really quite fortuitous! Stoked.

+ What do you hope audiences will feel when they see the show?
> I hope they enjoy it.

+ Has anyone ever threatened you about your art?
> Not yet!

+ Do you want them to?
> I don’t like feeling threatened but I guess the masochist in me would enjoy it.

+ What do you say to city officials who think of street art as glorified vandalism?
> They’re right, it is glorious.

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Phil James’ exhibition opens on the 22nd of January at Ray Hughes Gallery.

Posted by amelia in Art, Features

Tags: angus young, anime, astroboy, banksy, battle of the planets, clementine blackman, design festa, don martin, evening glory, frank frazetta, hang gliding, hayao miyazaki, hiroshige, japan, jeff koons, jim phillips, kimba, looney tunes, manga, mort drucker, Newcastle, perry farrell, phil james, pornography, ray hughes gallery, search terms that probably will bring spam to our blog, sex, shepard fairey, shunga, takashi murakami, todd schorr, tokyo, walt disney