Culture

Last Friday night I went to Dunedin-based artist Zac Fay’s first official exhibition, Blood Eagle, at Kiki Beware on George Street, and it was so effortlessly great. Unfortunately the exhibition is now over, but because Zac is local, naturally I felt it would be appropriate to meet and greet and discuss art in the flesh, so we sat down at Nova for a quick espresso.

Fay is 23 years old and was born and bred in Dunedin. Aside from spare time doodling, he worked for a year as an assistant at Van Brandenburg architects in Dunedin before he left to study marketing. The architectural elements of his work and his decision to exhibit it in a clean, modern and architecturally reflective space stemmed from his interest in architecture. Other than that, he gets a lot of inspiration from cartoons and other illustrative artists. His favourite graffiti/street artist is American contemporary illustrator and street artist Neckface, whose work is generally congruent with Fay’s.

The exhibition at Kiki took Fay a month to do and was comprised of eight A4 pieces, six A5 pieces and two A3 pieces.

In terms of the creative process, he says his process is quite basic but it works. Fay starts with a light pencil outline, which he then goes over in ink, before filling in chosen areas with water colours and the occasional hint of gouache.

Fay’s images are what he describes as “creepy and creature-like” but still friendly as the characters and images appear both comical and cartoonish. When I first saw the exhibition it reminded me of Salad Fingers, but not so anguished and cynical. The creepy subjects are juxtaposed with subtle saturations of water colour that “tone down the subjects a bit,” as they contrast the sharpness of the black inked lines and in doing this, instead of appearing horrifying or gruesome, his images feel more light-hearted and seem to represent a specific state of ironic, modern melancholia.

This theme runs through his whole exhibition with images of things like stubbed-out cigarette butts and daggers with blood on them, filed lightly with pastel-like blue, red and black watercolours. His work is playful but well-constructed and is thematically coherent.

Outside this exhibition (in Dunedin spirit) Fay has collaborated with other local creative friends and fellow artists, including commissioned prints for local brand Clothes I’ve Made, where he designed t-shirt prints: “I did a Gucci-esque print for them, and a Street Sharks inspired one.” Fay has also done some work for the Public Gallery and has extended his reach to Melbourne, where he has done album covers for his friend, Scapegoat Mercy (soundcloud.com/username-21).

With not much else to say about his work apart from the fact that he was overwhelmed by the positive response, numb by excitement on the night, and thankful to his girlfriend, Briar, for being the “brain” behind his creative impulse, Fay finished his long black before he pulled out his sketchpad showing me a quick drawing of a bloody dagger he had done for a best friend and, gathering his things together, he assured me he would pen me a piece that features knives and blood and cigarettes – specifically, a dagger impaling a bunch of cigarettes. Fabulous!

Uncertain when his next exhibition will be, Zac is enthusiastic to keep drawing and working, and I am looking forward to seeing more in the future.