Mixed Media Artist

He went from poor dimensionally to precise. He practised drawing comic book characters and that led him to art college. Lusky took graphic design which also had a fine art attribute. His new teacher Geoff Johnson was a nationally and internationally known artist and featured in TV documentary and magazine interviews. He honed his abilities and he became a good friend. From college he landed a job at a local newspaper, The Journal, although the job was technical he was always asked to provide illustrations and computer generated 3D graphics etc. It was great commercial experience and he has an extensive portfolio of information graphics and illustration from that time of his life.

After The Journal he spent 7 years working in web design and media for Granada and ITV. There were lots of opportunities to flex his creativity. Character design and 3D renders in Lightwave, 3D Studio and later Maya. All of this has culminated in his present abilities and style. He has mixed media from computers to oil paint and the results are The Machine Men and The Corporatists amongst other political lowbrow satirical creations.

Lusky is from the fantastic and beautiful city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. The Architecture in the city centre is amongst some of the most incredible in the world. There is lots of amazing bridges in the city however these things along with historical industry such as ship building and mining are reasons he as an artist chose to move in different directions artistically. Most of the art produced in the North East of England is hinged on this inspiring environment but limits the artists to a local audience. He felt it was over saturated and needed to broaden his outlook to things global.

Lusky's favourite artist of all time is Franz Zaver Messerschmidt. Lusky states 'he was so far ahead of his time it’s unthinkable to me that an individual can move art so far in his own lifetime. He was deemed insane by his peers.' Lusky has a copy of one of his heads and it’s as unsettling as it is inspiring. he likes alot of the new school of artists too. Anyone who challenges the status quo and pushes back against any type of corruption is a friend of his. He still loves comic book artists like Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware. Technically Alex Ross and Adi Granov are the artists he still admires and looks on with amazement at how brilliant they are.

Lusky loves oil paint. he says the good thing about oil is the bad thing about oil and the bad thing about oil is the good thing. The same is true
of acrylic which he also likes but doesn’t use so much now. One dries fast the other dries slow. So if you have something that needs to dry fast acrylic is best but it needs a retarder to slow it’s drying for better gradients. Oil needs a supplement to make it dry faster. He prefers oil as it allows blending for a greater period of time.

For his dollar art he uses a mixed bag of tricks. Gouache, paint pens such as Posca and Molotow and ink in the form of markers and fineliners. It’s a precise system which allows him to control detail over a shorter period of time.

Lusky finds inspiration in documentaries and literature mostly. he watches a lot of news and political shows and anyone who is producing podcasts that has economic content is also valuable.

Lusky thinks the old saying ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ rings truer today than it ever did with the adoption of memes on the internet
and social media. He likes that he has a library of effectively his own memes in the form of dollar art motifs. They are now all NTF’s too and will hopefully live on in a different medium for some time to come.