Marcus Oakley creates images that radiate with life enriching nice vibes.

Playful and positively page filling, his many-legged humans have sprawling arms and extra digits; anthropomorphised animals throw shapes with their angular elbows and curvy posteriors.

Nearly-used black marker pens lend scratchy, linear texture to his drawings while his colour-heavy collages feature chubby succulents in plant pots and repeat patterns of endless men whose hair is classically styled.

His distinctive style is arguably the by-product of a pre-digital art education at Camberwell College. Here Marcus talks to us about his creative practice, musical heroes and the Natives residency curated by Nicolas Burroughs.

We’ve read that you now live in Edinburgh – how does the location influence your work? Can you tell us a little bit about where you born?

I was born in the flatlands of Norfolk in Norwich in the 1970’s. I moved up to Edinburgh last year after 22 years living in south London, for 14 of those years I lived in the melting pot of Brixton. In London I was bombarded daily visually with so much stuff , Sometimes this really was inspiring and at other times it was all rather draining. Edinburgh has been a big change and my new location has made some subtle changes to my work. It’s nice now being near the sea and mountains.

What do you love about your job? And what bits could you do without?

I like the unpredictability of being a freelance graphic artist and just being able to draw and be creative everyday. I could do without the tax returns.

What is your drink, snack and music of choice when making work?

Tea and more tea. Music wise I listen to mostly music made in the 1970’s. Generally it can be pretty smooth dudes like The Beach Boys, Doobie Brothers, The Pentangle, Gerry Rafferty, James Taylor, Wings, 10cc, Fairport Convention, Jean Michel Jarre, Brian Protheroe and David Essex. If you feel like you need some smooth vibes you can listen my DJ set at Last years Pick Me Up Festival. For the last ten years I have been experimenting with making music inspired by my work, check it out here.

We know there are a lot of talented folk out there, but if you could collaborate with anyone or do anything, who or what would it be?

There’s not one specific person but it would radical to turn my drawings into huge objects and make an interactive sculpture park, perhaps with a nice cafe.

 

Can you tell us where you studied? How do you think your art education benefits you now as a creative practitioner?

From 1993 – 1996 I studied Art & Design at Camberwell College of Art. I’m not entirely sure what the bubble of art education did for me… I guess studying for three years enforced that I wanted to somehow live a creative life. I enjoyed the craft aspects of the course. We didn’t really use computers that much in the early 1990’s and so the course was very much analogue ordinated, often using Xerography, Omnicrom, type setting and silk screen printing; even when I made video art I liked the clunky, chunky analogue-ness of the old video equipment they had then.

In your portfolio there are a lot of drawings and collage – how do you go about choosing the right process for the job? How much of what you do happens on a computer?

I tend to work on commissions using the computer, in this way I can be really versatile changing elements, size and colour and then use paint and other multi media on personal projects. It works well for me this way, ideas often get jumbled into work and personal projects.

Do you start out with a clear idea of how you want an image to look or do you just go with the flow and see what happens?

Usually I will have a specific idea and out of curiosity I will try and bring that idea to life; I like how an idea can then change into something different from what I originally intended. I simply enjoy the physicality of drawing and connecting one line with another and the journey of trying to visualise an idea that started in my imagination or something I’m looking at. I feel like I’m a student of the line and I’m continuously learning how drawing has the potential to be anything and interpreted into anything 2D, 3D or even sonically.

 

Your stint on the The Natives Residency sounds quite different – can you tell us about the experience?

Sure. It was organised by artist Nicolas Burrows. The idea was to take artists of different disciplines (illustrators, fine artists, applied artists, writers, musicians, film-makers) who display an interest in and would benefit from site-specific engagement with the natural landscape. Other artists on the trip were: Sister Arrow, William Edmonds and Supermundane. We were in an isolated location living in a stone cottage above Coniston Water in the Lake District. The cottage didn’t have any running water and electricity. The days were spent walking, working, singing, talking and cooking. I enjoyed having the time to sit for days just drawing and drawing the surrounding  landscape. I based many of my drawings on the topographic contour system used in Ordnance Survey maps. Nicolas recently compiled the work from the project into a journal, it’s available here.

What is your attitude to work and life around it? Do you find hard to fit in downtime?

Personally for me its all the same, life and work is all mixed up, when I’m not actually working I’m still thinking about doing or making something. I’m not sure if its downtime but if I’m not working I like, cycling, looking, hill walking, thinking, baking bread, reading, drawing and playing the guitar badly.

What’s your favourite colour and why?

Blue. It’s a colour of many melodic moods.

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