He’s one of the most important illustrators of the past decade; a shy, self-depricating, tea-drinking lad from Birmingham, who admits that he looks back on his work from the late 90s and cringes with the same intensity as he would gazing back at teenage photos of himself. You know the feeling, sure, we thought we were cool at the time, but everyone must evolve (god willing). Refusing to be boxed in by the (dare i say it) ‘trademark’ style many of us know him for, Jasper Goodall likes to think of his aesthetic as constantly changing. Afterall, he is only an artist trapped inside a commercial illustrator’s body.
We all know a Goodall original when we see it. It has the same renegade eroticism of an Aubrey Beardsley; naughty, in the most palatable way. Only now, it’s dressed unashamedly in rubber latex.
The Goodall world is one where fantastical space-age pinups meet 60s psychedelia. Where hyper-real silhouettes allude to fetishism; and if not rendered in bold black and white, then on a kitsch candy color- palette.
When I spoke with Goodall and raised the notion of his work as “fashionable pornography”, we came to the conclusion that not only does sex sell, but advertising itself is inherently pornographic; afterall, it is really, just a means to an end.
With clients that have included MTV, Gucci, Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, BMW, and most notably, the Face Magazine, Goodall is certainly one of the lucky few for whom art is bringing home the bacon. He’s also done covers for the band Muse; but like everyone else, there are some days when he wants to pack it all in and work for something more “worthwhile” like the Forestry Commission, and perhaps do a chainsaw course…
Albeit an artist whose style has helped define contemporary illustration, I got a sense in this interview that Goodall is still surprised at his success and incredibly modest. When I asked how he would like to be remembered, his response was: “as a thoughtful person who struggled in life; but was alright really.” We have a feeling he’s more than just alright. He’s not only ludicrously talented; a trail blazer in his field, but he’s also a damn nice chap.
Ok so, first up Jasper, how would you describe your aesthetic to a stranger?
(Laughs)
Tough first question?
Well, the first thing I’d say, is that I think it keeps changing; I’d call it contemporary, fantasy illustration. Contemporary, fashionable, fanciful illustration.
That’s a mouthful, an accurate mouthful nonetheless. So what are your influences, and who do you admire?
My influences come completely outside illustration. The thing I talk to my students about is not being influenced by your contemporaries, otherwise you may start looking like everybody else. Years ago I was actually more interested in photography than I was in illustration, and that’s why I think my illustration has always has been fairly photographically rooted. I love Helmut Newton, Ellen on Unwerth; so a lot of 70s, 80s 90s fashion photography. Although, that’s just one tiny little bit, but when it comes to less photographic stuff, I’d be more inclined to look at Chinese painting from the 17th century, or Japanese kabuki theatre posters. I don’t really look at anything contemporary, I don’t want to know what everyone else is doing…
So do you think there is a signature Jasper Goodall style?
I think there is a signature vibe to it, a feeling to it, but I don’t think there is a signature style. People think there is, and people know me for work that I did absolutely ages ago, that’s what they think of when they think of me; but I have very mixed feelings about that. I’ve actually just written something for a Sydney- based magazine that wanted to do an interview with me, and I realised that when I think about what people know as my style, it stems from 1999, 2000 and 2001. I’ve likened it to looking back to photos of yourself as a teenager. Back then you thought you were really cool at the time, but you now you think “oh no, what was I doing”.
Oh really?
Well, I still think it was good work and I can see it, and appreciate that it was good, but I think for me, I have to feel like I’m doing something new and different all the time. No doubt a lot of my images do have a similar feeling to them, but yeah, possibly not, a similar style.
I’ve read that you’re inspired by Aubrey Beardsley, probably my favourite artist, and I see elements of his style in your work. How does his aesthetic influence yours?
Well I think I liked his attitude more than anything else, I just liked that he would commercially work as a book jacket illustrator, and do theatre poster drawings, but he was really into poking fun at people and trying to be as rude as possible; trying to shake up society a little bit. He was working for print and he was pretty much restricted to black and white, but with that sort of stuff he was doing, I think he became brilliant at creating really dynamic compositions because he wasn’t using colour very much.
So what made you want to be an artist?
I’d say, my Dad actually. Both my parents were very creative, my Dad was an architect and my Mum was a fine artist, a photographer and a writer, but I don’t think she really wanted me to be an artist or a designer, I think it’s because she herself, didn’t do brilliantly out of it. She was very political, and she would’ve much preferred me to go and study sociology and politics and try to change the world somehow. My Dad on the other hand, saw that I was a good drawer and really encouraged me to do that, and I think he actually planted a lot of seeds for my career. I think he was very good at seeing what I was good at. He worked at the University of Birmingham in the UK and he would go to the university library and bring back these huge illustration annuals and I’d just sit there all weekend staring at weird airbrushed illustration from the 80s. So it was him showing me these great illustration books, and I don’t know what I would’ve ended up doing if he hadn’t directed me that way.
So you can’t see yourself in any other career?
Well, every now and again I think I don’t want to be an artist anymore and I look at the prospectus for this local agricultural college and think maybe I’ll go and do a chainsaw course and work for the Forestry Commission or something. Sometimes I get so frustrated with what I do that I think I could only do something that was the complete opposite, something very physical, that involved being outside, dealing with real, solid problems like cutting trees down. Not like the weird creative decisions you have to make, which are really quite tiring sometimes. It would be a gargantuan shift that every now and then I threaten to do, in my own mind, but I would probably never get around to.
How did you get your first break?
Well, I started drawing buildings, that was probably my Father’s influence because he was an architect, and I ended up doing loads and loads of location drawings, and then working for a newspaper called the Evening Standard, and every week they had a magazine called the ES magazine, and they would review a different restaurant or bar in London and I would draw either the outside or inside of the bar. I ended up doing that for a year or two. I had some boring ones, but I also had some crazy ones. I had to go and draw a scary gay disco once, which was quite strange. The weirdest one was in Hackney in London where they had these pubs where people could go, and a stripper would come out and do a dance and take all her clothes off. She would then come around with a pint glass, and you’d put some money in that. The Evening Standard actually gave me some extra money to give to these strippers so they wouldn’t get angry that I was taking photographs in the bar. So that was what I started out doing, but it isn’t really what everyone knows me for, so actually, I think what really made things take off, was when I started working for the Face Magazine in the late 90s. I stopped drawing buildings and reinvented myself. It took quite a few years of just sitting in my bedroom drawing things that I saw as more interesting than buildings, and after a while of harassing people and showing them my portfolio, I dropped it off at The Face Magazine a few times, and they eventually gave me a job.
What have been some your favorite projects?
I think the most fun I’ve ever had was when I was working for a guy called Graham Rounthwaite, who was the Art Director of the Face Magazine. He was an illustrator and he really knew how to treat and commission illustrators, and he knew not to put loads of parameters on what we could do. He would just say, “this article is about zombie movies, just draw me a cool picture of zombies please”, so I would just go off and do whatever I wanted; he never ever asked me to change anything. It was just a joy to get paid for drawing any crazy pictures I wanted. That’s probably the ones I enjoyed most, but the thing I’ve gotten the most out of recently, was designing the Muse record covers; I think that was really good because it was challenging, the band was pretty picky, and I think myself and the art director were pushed quite a lot, but that was good because it made me abandon old ways of working, and made me do something really different and new, which opened up other doors for me.
So when it comes to your representations of women, which perhaps you are most well known for, how do you respond when your work is referred to as “fashionable pornography”?
Is that what people say?
Yeah, I’ve read it in a few places. I think it comes down to where you draw the line in art between eroticism and pornography?
Ahh see, that’s an easier question for me to answer, because, I have thought a lot about it. I think that there’s very seldom any ideas in pornography. I think it has its purpose, and it’s pretty one dimensional, it’s masturbation- material as far as I’m concerned. There is really no other reason for it to exist. I think therefore, erotica needs to differentiate itself from pornography by having more content than just a depiction of a person without any clothes on, or a person engaging in a sexual act. I have battled with that in the past, but I feel that even if my work is erotic-looking, there is always a subtext, a sense of humor about it, or a comment or some form of research that has gone into the image; something that has a reason for existing other than to turn people on. Erotica needs to have ideas with it. Whilst for erotic artists of the past, it was o.k to draw someone without any clothes on and elicit some reaction, I think today, with the rise of sex in advertising, and how conditioned to pornography everyone is getting, you can’t just do that anymore. I couldn’t draw a picture of a naked woman, it has to have another reason for existing. I think it has to try a bit harder nowadays, to be funny, to comment on sexual weirdness, or something like that.
We’ve all heard the phrase “sex sells”, but couldn’t we say that advertising itself is inherently pornographic? After all, it is just a means to an end?
I think, if I could give you a different analogy, my girlfriend buys interior design magazines and I call it, ‘girl pornography.’ I think it’s almost the same thing really. I mean, she’s looking at all of these beautiful houses and beautiful buildings and thinking “oh isn’t that lovely, isn’t that lovely” and its almost a pornographic, weird desire. Everyone has desire in so many different forms, and advertising plays on all levels of desire. Even going into an Apple Mac shop, and seeing a really beautiful, sexy looking shiny computer and thinking “oh I just love that, you Apple, you.” It’s all the same base emotion as viewing a pornographic image. It’s just two different ends of a sliding scale. One is not very extreme, and the other is much more extreme, in that it’s giving you this kind of animal reaction. Actually if you sit down and think about it, it’s just the same emotion. It’s just desire at the end of the day. So yeah I think advertising is pornographic, all of it is.
I’m glad we both agree. So off the porn, and back to something a little more PG. What terrifies you, and what excites you? Please be PG.
(Laughs) Well, getting old terrifies me. I’m quite terrified about losing my physical ability to be active. That’s a terrifying thought. I’d rather die than not be able to use my legs and be too old and decrepit. What excites me? Good question.
Something other than Apple computers?
I think it lies outside of what we’ve been talking about in terms of art and design, I think I’m excited by seeing amazing landscapes. I often say that I feel that nature has created much more beautiful things than mankind ever can, or could. I gotta be honest and say that when I come to Australia, I’d be more excited about getting plonked in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, than actually coming to Sydney. I’d be more excited about walking around the desert with an Aborigine for a week.
You might get over that when it’s 35 degrees.
See that’s my ridiculously romanticized version of what I want Australia to be like.
Yeah, see when your starving, and it’s 35 degrees, the sun’s beating down on you, you’ve got no water, you’re gonna wish you were in a nice hotel in Sydney.
(Laughs) Most probably, yeah. I think everyone has these romanticised images of what it must be like. I also want to go and see the American west too, and I think I’m totally basing that on what I’ve seen of it in movies. It’ll probably be awful when I go there, horribly commercialized, full of big fat Americans. So maybe I’m very wrong. BUT my point was, I do get very excited by natural beauty and amazing landscapes.
I totally know what you mean. So what projects are you working on right now?
Right now, I’m, making some new prints which I’m starting to sell from my own website. I’ve been trying to sort my website out by having a proper shop on it, so I’m doing some prints for the launch of that, and I’m also working on different stuff; much more airbrushed looking, very 80s, surreal, slightly sexual, although not as sexual as some of the other stuff I’ve done, but very shiny, latex things in the desert.
Wow!
Yeah, they’re pretty cool, but they’re just going to be prints. It’s personal work, but it will be for sale eventually. I’m not doing any commercial projects at the moment.
So, one more question before we go. And I’m bringing out the big guns again. How would you like to be remembered?
That’s so hard to answer. Perhaps, as a thoughtful person, that struggled in life; but was alright really.
That’s a great answer. (laughs). Poignant.
You think?
Definitely.
By Bianca Georgiou
All images provided by Jasper Goodall
