Matt Sewell: Artist, Illustrator, Author
Matt Sewell is an artist, illustrator and author who recently created an owl for The Big Hoot, a project with Birmingham Children's Hospital that will see owls, designed and created by artists placed around the city in the summer of 2015.
Matt has published four books and his artwork can be seen on a range of products such as mugs, t-shirts and more. He has also completed numerous commissions for various brands and his work has featured in The Big Issue and The Guardian, among many other publications.
Matt went to art college in the 1990s, where he studied a modular course, admitting that he didn't really know what he wanted to do. This course allowed him to try out a range of different things, although in the back of his mind he believed he wanted to become an animator. However, once he had started to study animation during the course, he found it repetitive and did not enjoy it as he had thought. At this time, animation was a very slow process as computers were not so common, he notes that the college did have a computer suite but it was hardly used by students.
"I got more out of designing the characters and the set and storyboards"
Matt now describes himself as an illustrator, artist and an author, however he expresses how he seemed to fall into this role as he discovered what an illustrator was and his work began to evolve along with the activities that he enjoyed most;
"I even didn't really know what an illustrator was to be honest with you, and then I realised it was all those cool images in magazines"
Upon leaving art college, Matt explains how he became disillusioned with his work, he had essentially had enough. He worked in various factory jobs and didn't do any artwork, generally lacking confidence in what he produced. Rather it was a friend that sent his work to a publisher that produced a series of books with street art. Seeing other people doing similar things, although not the same, Matt gained confidence in his work, which was selected and published in a book. Matt coments how this gave him the confidence to think that people actually liked his work and began sending it around to magazines and other publishers, resulting in several commissions and seeing his work published in magazines such as The Big Issue and The Guardian.
In the 1990s, getting work published in a book or magazine was almost the only way to get it seen by the masses; Matt notes that
"today is very different because print doesn't really exist so much, which is a shame, but there is so much more potential online to get your work seen, although it may be over-saturated at the same time".
It is particularly interesting to note that although Matt is now an illustrator, his work is strongly rooted in street art and graffiti. During this time, Matt's work was regularly published in magazines, but he states "at the same time I was painting walls and doing a bit of graffiti and stuff like that, and the two things went hand in hand really". This relationship between illustration, publication and graffiti is often overlooked. Matt continued to work in this way before taking some time out to travel, during which he rekindled his love of birdwatching, which is shown throughout his recent work, he explains how he came back wanting to focus his own personal illustrations on birds, however this eventually overtook everything that he did.
"I didn't set out to write a bird book, I started off doing a blog post on a website called 'Caught by the River' and started painting my favourite birds and I'd write a sentence, then that would turn into two, then it was like 'hold on, this could be a book'"
After developing his first book, Matt achieved a publishing deal and has since published another three books. Alongside this he has begun to develop a range of products that his artwork may be printed onto, such as greeting cards, calendars and mugs. His most recent book was released at Christmas, named 'Owls', and has achieved great success. He is currently in the process of developing another book and is considering work on foxes. Matt expresses how this takes him back to his early days as a street artist;
"I've been painting foxes for longer than I've been painting birds really, that goes way back to my early street arts days when instead of doing my name, I was painting foxes"
This is a fantastic example of how an art, that is often perceived as a hobby and often disapproved of, may feed into a career as an artsist that works in many mediums and outcomes, clearly demonstrated through Matt Sewell's work.
Alongside developing his own artwork and books, Matt has been commissioned by a wide range of companies such as clothing labels, record labels and charities. For example, he is currently working on a design for a gin label for a New York spirit company and in the past he has been involved in numerous works for the RSPB, from painting walls to designing pin badges and running a charity fundraiser. Early in his illustrative career, Matt used to make wooden birds which he painted and sold, using leftover pieces, Matt is commissioning artists to paint them and is planning an exhibition and auction to raise money for the RSPB.
With a wide range of projects under his belt, he very modestly notes that
"it is generally a case of winging it and doing whatever is going on"
Matt has forged a successful career, from street artist to author and illustrator, however as with many arts professionals, this route has not been easy, nor has it been hugely predictable. He reflects on his own career and offers advice for aspiring artists:
Try not to be too hard on yourself and be confident. Although you may have a particular style, Matt expresses how it is important to not to become stuck because things naturally change over time
"with illustration you have to keep updating and modernising what you do. I see a lot of graduate stuff at the moment that is a similar style and that's really cool because that is what is current and used by the mass market, but at the end of the day you want to survive off this so don't think you have to do what's cool at the minute, it's all about experimenting and trying to keep your stuff lively and try different things"
Matt also explains how friendship groups and peers played a huge role in boosting his confidence early in his career. At art college he found that "everybody was in the same boat, nobody was really part of anything", however now that he has had the confidence to pursue his work and develop himself within the arts, he states
"a lot of my friends are artists and that motivates me because I see what everybody else is doing, but at the time I didn't know anyone who did that kind of stuff"
He suggests that peer groups and friendship groups are very important, not only in support, but also in showing what is possible and making people push themselves and challenge what they can achieve. However, above all Matt states that to remain confident and to produce the best possible work, clearly demonstrated through the way that he has transformed his love of birdwatching into a fully fledged career;
"for me it's about trying to keep it fun"