DAVE McKEAN

MAIDENHEAD (UK), 1963

Dave McKean, born in Taplow (Berkshire), England, in November 1963, is one of Britain’s and the world’s most renowned illustrators and designers.

 

His creative and artistic power dazzles all lovers of design and illustration. He is also a photographer, musician (pianist) and a budding film director.

From a very young age he was related to art. He was influenced by his father, who was an airplane pilot and enjoyed drawing in his spare time.

 

He studied at the Berkshire College of Art and Design, one of the best art institutes. There he established close relationships with José Muñoz and Bill Sienkiewicz, the former in particular being an important influence. But the most important relationship in his career was established, also at Berkshire College, with Neil Gaiman. The latter was born in Portchester, England, in 1960 and at that time was a journalist who was already aspiring to become a comic book writer.

 

They began to work together and the fame of both grew thanks to the important works carried out at the end of the 20th century. Neil Gaiman commissioned Dave McKean to illustrate his stories and they automatically surprised and delighted fans with the richness and overwhelming beauty of their images. McKean’s designs are visually strong and offer unreal, dreamlike and sparse images due to his style, which relies heavily on painting and the use of collage.

EXHIBITIONS

DAVE McKEAN

BErkshire, 1963

Dave McKean nació en Taplow, Berkshire en 1963.

Estudió en el Berkshire College of Art and Design de 1982 a 1986 y, antes de irse, comenzó a trabajar como ilustrador.

En 1986 conoció al autor Neil Gaiman con quien ha colaborado en muchos proyectos desde entonces. Su primer libro, Casos violentos (1987), ha sido impreso en multitud de ediciones en todo el mundo y adaptado para el teatro. Desde entonces han producido Black Orchid (1988), Signal To Noise (1990) para la revista The Face y Mr. Punch (1975). Ha realizado todas las ilustraciones y el diseño de las portadas de la mítica serie de novelas gráficas The Sandman, y en 1998 se publicó un recopilatorio con todas estas portabas bajo el título DustCovers.

Arkham Asylum (1989), escrita por el autor y dramaturgo escocés Grant Morrison e ilustrada en su totalidad por McKean, sigue siendo la novela gráfica más exitosa jamás publicada. 1995 vio colaboraciones con los Rolling Stones (The Voodoo Lounge) y Rachel Pollack (The Vertigo Tarot).

Entre 1990 y 1996 escribió e ilustró la novela gráfica Cages, que ganó el premio Harvey  y el premio Ignatz a la mejor novela gráfica, así como premio internacional Alph Art y el premio italiano La Pantera.

Su colección de cuentos en forma de cómics, Pictures That Tick, lanzada en 2000, ganó el premio al Libro Ilustrado del Año del Victoria and Albert Museum, cuya colección incorpora varios de los libros del artista.

En 2010/11, Delcourt, Fantagraphics y otras editoriales de toda Europa lanzan su novela erótica Celluloid.

Ha contribuido con muchas ilustraciones para The New Yorker, Playboy y otras revistas, y ha realizado trabajos de promoción para las películas Blade, Alien Resurrection, The King is Alive, Dust y Sleepy Hollow. Además de realizar un conjunto de sellos de criaturas mitológicas del Royal Mail. Ha creado ilustraciones conceptuales para la segunda y tercera película de Harry Potter, diseños para el proyecto interactivo de Lars von Trier en Copenhague, House of Zoon, y diseño de películas y producción para el musical Lestat de Elton John para Broadway Warner Brothers. En el National Theatre of Scotland / La improbable producción teatral musical de Wolves in the Walls abrió en Glasgow y Londres, antes de trasladarse a Nueva York.

Ha ganado varios premios, incluido el premio internacional Amid a la mejor portada de álbum del año, una de las más de 150 portadas diseñadas, ilustradas y fotografiadas desde 1990, incluidos los lanzamientos de Michael Nyman, Tori Amos, Roy Harper, Delerium, Project Mooncircle, Real World, Altan, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Bill Laswell, Alice Cooper, Dream Theater, Counting Crows, Front Line Assembly y Bill Bruford.

En 1996 compuso e interpretó la música para la adaptación BBCRadio de Signal to Noise con el saxofonista Iain Ballamy, con quien recientemente ha iniciado el sello Feral Records.

El estudio Dave’s Hourglass y Allen Speigel Fine Arts en California también han co-publicado tres colecciones de fotografías; A Small Book of B / W Lies, Option: Click and The Particle Tarot que incluye una introducción del legendario director y maestro del Tarot Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Ha expuesto en América y Europa, incluyendo exposiciones individuales en The Four Color Gallery (Nueva York), el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Madrid) y el Museo Marítimo (Carlisle), Galerie Martel (París), Galerie BD (París), Galerie. Petit Papier (Bruselas) y Galeria Artizar (Tenerife), además de dos exposiciones itinerantes con Graphicus Touring de la muestra retrospectiva Narcolepsy, que continúa exhibiéndose en el Reino Unido y Europa.

McKean ha ilustrado varios libros para niños. El día que cambié a mi papá por dos peces de colores y Los lobos en las paredes (Libro ilustrado del año del NY Times), MirrorMask y Crazy Hair, todos escritos por Neil Gaiman. Varjak Paw (premio Smarties Gold), The Outlaw Varjak Paw y Phoenix escrito por SF Said, y The Savage (Liverpool Reads libro del año), Slog’s Dad, Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf de David Almond.

Ha ilustrado y diseñado varios libros para adultos como Wizard & Glass y Night Shift (Stephen King), The Homecoming and Skeletons (Ray Bradbury), What’s Welsh For Zen y Sedition & Alchemy (John Cale), y libros y películas para televisión con Iain Sinclair (Slow Chocolate Autopsy, My Favorite London Devils) , Landor’s Tower, Asylum y The Falconer). Además ilustró ediciones de Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane y American Gods y The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) que ganó la Medalla Newberry, el Carnegie y muchos otros premios.

Dave McKean comenzó una relación de trabajo continua con Heston Blumenthal en The Big Fat Duck Book y Historic Heston, y ha contribuido con murales, diseño de paquetes, papel tapiz, mapas y varias otras obras gráficas para The Fat Duck and the Hinds Head en Bray, Dinner en Londres y Melbourne.

En 2011, se estrenó The Magic of Reality de Richard Dawkins, profusamente ilustrado por McKean, un libro que fomenta el pensamiento imaginativo, crítico y escéptico, y presenta a los lectores jóvenes (y a cualquier persona en realidad) al asombroso mundo real de la ciencia.

En 1998, Dave decidió hacer algunas películas. The Week Before y N [eon] son ​​cortometrajes que se presentaron en los circuitos de festivales de todo el mundo y N [eon] ganó el primer premio en el Festival de Cine de Clermont-Ferrand. Estas películas llamaron la atención de Lisa Henson, de Jim Henson Company, y junto con Neil Gaiman y el pequeño equipo de McKean se embarcaron en MirrorMask, una película de fantasía para Columbia / Tristar. Estrenada en el Festival de Sundance en Utah, y seleccionada oficialmente para los festivales de cine de Locarno, Sitges, Londres, Edimburgo, Sarasota, Hawái y Dublín. Ganó 9 premios (incluido el Black Tulip inaugural en el Festival de Ámsterdam) y finalmente se estrenó en cines. en 2005. Se lanzaron tres libros vinculados con la película, incluido The Alchemy of MirrorMask, un lujoso libro de arte que incluye todas las pinturas, diseños y fotografías realizadas para la película.

En la Pascua de 2011, McKean viajó a Port Talbot, Gales, para dirigir la versión cinematográfica del épico evento teatral en vivo de tres días de Michael Sheen, La Pasión de Port Talbot. Una reinvención contemporánea y secular de la obra de La Pasión. Organizado por Wildworks y National Theatre Wales, 20.000 visitantes participaron en las escenas al aire libre, y una compañía de casi 1000 lugareños contribuyó a uno de los eventos artísticos más importantes de la década. La película se llamó The Gospel of Us y fue lanzada por Soda Pictures en 2012. Ganó 2 premios Bafta Cymru para Michael Sheen y el mago del sonido Ian Sands.

En 2013/14 terminó una nueva colección de cómics cortos llamada Pictures that Tick 2: Exhibition, que presenta varias obras de galería y narrativas interactivas, incluidas Coast Road y Blue Tree (Rye Art Gallery) y The Rut (Pumphouse Gallery, Londres). Completó dos cuadernos de viajes (Perugia y Bilbao) para agregar a una serie en curso (Bruselas, París, Barcelona, ​​Viena) y, tras siete turbulentos años de producción, su tercer largometraje, Luna. Luna se estrenó en el Festival de Cine de Toronto y ganó el premio a Mejor Película Británica en el Festival Raindance y el Premio Raindance en los Premios del Cine de la Independencia Británica. Se lanzó una colección de todos los cortometrajes, películas musicales y avances de largometrajes de McKean con un espléndido sencillo llamado Short Films, de Dark Horse Books.

 

En 2015 McKean volvió a trabajar con Bill Mitchell y Wildworks Theatre Company para crear Wolf’s Child, una obra de teatro al aire libre site specific para el Festival de Teatro de Norfolk. Dave escribió el guión y la letra, y actualmente está compilando el metraje en una nueva película. También escribió la historia, la letra y creó películas para la comisión del Festival de Jazz / Literatura de Manchester An Ape’s Progress, con Iain Ballamy y el poeta Matthew Sweeney.

 

En 2016, Dave escribió e ilustró Black Dog: the Dreams of Paul Nash. Este libro y el trabajo escénico que lo acompaña fue un encargo de la Fundación 14-18Now, el Museo Imperial de la Guerra, el Festival Internacional de Arte-Cómic de los Lagos y On a Marché Sur la Bulle. Fue publicado como una edición de artistas en el Reino Unido y en todo el mundo por Dark Horse Publishing y Glénat. McKean transfirió el libro a una serie de proyecciones y escribió una hora de música orquestal y canciones. Esta actuación tuvo lugar en el Somme Memorial en Amiens y, después de varias actuaciones en festivales, en la inauguración de la retrospectiva de Nash en Tate Britain.

Los proyectos de libros recientes incluyen Caustic, una colección de dibujos inspirados en el cine erótico silencioso, Colorado Kid (Stephen King), Soy leyenda (Richard Matheson), Poltergeist de Joe Quinn (David Almond), Postcard from Venice, Postcard from Prague (cuadernos de bocetos) y Apophenia (libro de arte).

Actualmente Dave McKean está terminando un libro de pinturas inspiradas en el cine mudo (Nitrate), más cuadernos de viajes (Tenerife y Nápoles) y un par de novelas gráficas nuevas (Caligaro y Raptor). Además de libros ilustrados de Joe Hill (Full Throttle) y Dostoyevsky (Crimen y castigo).

Vive en la Isla de Oxney en Kent (Inglaterra) con su esposa, directora del estudio y músico, Clare.

DAVE McKEAN

BErkshire, 1963

Dave McKean was born in Taplow, Berkshire in 1963. He attended Berkshire College of Art and Design from 1982-86 and, before leaving, started working as an illustrator.

In 1986 he met author Neil Gaiman with whom he has collaborated on many projects since. Their first book, Violent Cases (1987), has been printed in many editions worldwide, and adapted for the stage. Since then they have produced Black Orchid (1988), Signal To Noise (1990) for The Face magazine and Mr. Punch (1975). Dave has contributed all the cover illustrations and design for the popular Sandman series of graphic novels, and a collection of this work, Dust Covers, was published in 1998.

Arkham Asylum (1989) written by Scottish author/playwrite Grant Morrison, still the single most successful graphic novel ever published, was also illustrated by McKean. 1995 saw collaborations with the Rolling Stones (The Voodoo Lounge), and Rachel Pollack (The Vertigo Tarot).

Between 1990 and 1996, McKean also wrote and illustrated the 500pg. comic novel Cages, which won the Harvey Award for Best new comic and best graphic novel, the Ignatz Award, the International Alph Art award and Italy’s La Pantera Award.

His collection of short stories in comics form, Pictures That Tick released in 2000, won the Victoria and Albert Museum Illustrated Book of the Year Award, and several of McKean’s books are in the V&A collection.

Also in 2010/11 an erotic wordless novel called Celluloid was released by Delcourt, Fantagraphics and other publishers across Europe.

In 1995 he produced the image to launch The Sony Playstation, and in 1996 was one of four photographers chosen by Kodak and Saatchi’s to launch their new colour film with a book, video and global ad package. He has also produced campaigns for Smirnoff, British Telecom, 3dfx Voodoo, BMW/Mini, Nike, the British Government’s Social Work Department, and Eurostar.

He has contributed many illustrations to The New Yorker, Playboy and other magazines, and promotional work for the films Blade, Alien Resurrection, The King is Alive, Dust and Sleepy Hollow. Also, a set of Mythological Creatures stamps from the Royal Mail. He has created concept illustrations for the 2nd. And 3rd. Harry Potter films, designs for Lars von Trier’s interactive project in Copenhagen, House of Zoon, and films and production design for Elton John Broadway musical Lestat for Warner Brothers. The National Theatre of Scotland/Improbable musical theatrical production of Wolves in the Walls opened in Glasgow and London, before transferring to New York.

He has won various awards including the international Amid Award for the best album cover of the year, one of over a 150 covers designed, illustrated and photographed since 1990, including releases by Michael Nyman, Tori Amos, Roy Harper, Delerium, Project Mooncircle, Real World, Altan, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Bill Laswell, Alice Cooper, Dream Theater, Counting Crows, Front Line Assembly, and Bill Bruford.

In 1996 he composed and performed the music for the BBCRadio adaptation of Signal to Noise with saxophonist Iain Ballamy, with whom he has recently initiated the Feral Records label. Feral has released two Food CD’s (Ballamy and Thomas Stønen) and three Little Radio CD’s (Ballamy and Stian Carstensen).

Dave’s Hourglass studio and Allen Speigel Fine Arts in California have also co-published three collections of photographs; A Small Book of B/W Lies, Option:Click and The Particle Tarot which includes an introduction by legendary director and Tarot master Alejandro Jodorowsky.

He has exhibited in America and Europe including solo shows at The Four Color Gallery (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Madrid), and The Maritime Museum (Carlisle), Galerie Martel (Paris), Galerie BD (Paris), Galerie Petit Papier (Brussels), and Galeria Artizar (Tenerife), has put together two touring exhibitions with Graphicus Touring; the retrospective show Narcolepsy which continues to show throughout the UK and Europe, and a collection of photography.

McKean has illustrated several children’s books. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish and The Wolves in the Walls (NY Times Illustrated Book of the Year), MirrorMask and Crazy Hair, all written by Neil Gaiman. Varjak Paw (Smarties Gold Award), The Outlaw Varjak Paw and Phoenix written by SF Said, and The Savage (Liverpool Reads book of the year), Slog’s Dad, Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf by David Almond.

He has illustrated and designed several books for adults. Wizard & Glass and Night Shift (Stephen King), The Homecoming and Skeletons (Ray Bradbury), What’s Welsh For Zen and Sedition & Alchemy (John Cale), and books and TV films with Iain Sinclair (Slow Chocolate Autopsy, My Favourite London Devils, Landor’s Tower, Asylum and The Falconer). Dave illustrated editions of Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and American Gods and The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) which won the Newberry Medal, the Carnegie, and many other awards

Dave McKean began an ongoing working relationship with Heston Blumenthal on The Big Fat Duck Book and Historic Heston, and has contributed murals, package design, wallpaper, maps, and various other graphic works to The Fat Duck and the Hinds Head in Bray, Dinner in London and in Melbourne, and is Director of Story at the Duck.

In 2011 Richard Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality was released, profusely illustrated by Dave. A book that encourages imaginative, critical, sceptical thinking, and introduces young readers (and anyone really) to the awe-inspiring real world of science.

In 1998, Dave decided to make some films. The Week Before and N[eon] are short films that played the festival circuits worldwide and N[eon] won First Prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival. These films brought Dave to the attention of Lisa Henson from the Jim Henson Company, and together with Neil Gaiman and Dave’s small crew from the shorts, they embarked on MirrorMask, a feature fantasy film for Columbia/Tristar. Premiered at the Sundance Festival in Utah, and officially selected for the Locarno, Sitges, London, Edinburgh, Sarasota, Hawaii and Dublin film festivals, it won 9 awards (including the Inaugural Black Tulip at the Amsterdam Festival) and was finally released in cinemas in 2005. Three books were released to tie in with the film including The Alchemy of MirrorMask, a lavish art book which includes all the paintings, designs and photographs made for the film.

At Easter 2011, McKean travelled to Port Talbot, Wales to direct the film version of Michael Sheen’s epic three day live theatrical event the Passion of Port Talbot. A contemporary, secular re-imagining of the Passion play. Staged by Wildworks and National Theatre Wales, 20,000 visitors took part in the outdoor scenes, and a core company of nearly a 1000 locals contributed to one of the most important artistic events of the decade. The film was called The Gospel of Us, and was released by Soda Pictures in 2012. It won 2 Bafta Cymru Awards fro Michael Sheen and sound wizard Ian Sands.

In 2013/14 finished a new collection of short comics called Pictures that Tick 2: Exhibition, featuring several large gallery and interavtive narrative works including the Coast Road and Blue Tree (Rye Art Gallery) and The Rut (Pumphouse Gallery, London). He completed two travel sketchbooks (Perugia and Bilbao) to add to an ongoing series (Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Vienna), and after seven turbulent years of production, his third feature film, Luna. Luna premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, and won Best British Feature at the Raindance Festival, and the Raindance Award at the British Independence Film Awards. Luna has played at many festivals around the world. A collection of all Dave’s short films, music films and trailers for features, was released on blu-ray, with a lavish simply called Short Films, from Dark Horse Books.

In 2015, McKean worked with Bill Mitchell and the Wildworks Theatre Company again to create Wolf’s Child, a site specific outdoor play, for the Norfolk Theatre Festival. Dave wrote the script and lyrics, and is currently compiling the footage into a new feature film. He also wrote the story, lyrics and created films for the Manchester Jazz/Literature Festival commission An Ape’s Progress, with Iain Ballamy and poet Matthew Sweeney.

In 2016, Dave wrote and illustrated Black Dog: the Dreams of Paul Nash. This book and accompanying performance work, was a commission by the 14-18Now Foundation, The Imperial War Museum, The Lakes International Comic Art Festival and On a Marché Sur la Bulle. It was published as an artists edition in the UK, and worldwide by Dark Horse Publishing and Glénat. McKean transferred the book to a series of projections, and wrote an hour’s worth of orchestral music and songs. This performance occurred at the Somme Memorial in Amiens, and, after several festival performances, at the Tate Britain opening of Nash’s retrospective.

Recent book projects include Caustic, a collection drawings inspired by silent erotic cinema, Colorado Kid (Stephen King), I Am legend (Richard Matheson), Joe Quinn’s Poltergeist (David Almond), Postcard from Venice (sketchbook), and Apophenia (art book).

McKEan is currently finishing a book of paintings inspired by silent cinema (Nitrate), more travel sketchbooks (Prague, Tenerife and Naples) and a couple of new graphic novels (Caligaro and Raptor). Also, illustrated books by Joe Hill (Full Throttle) and Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment).

He lives on the Isle of Oxney in Kent, England with his wife, studio manager and musician, Clare.