Dennis Mcnett Interview

Dennis Mcnett is a very inspirational 3d/2d artist he was very kind to write back his responses were very useful to me

Hello,

Here are the responses to your questions.
How do you keep your working style current and upcoming with the constantly changing fashions and demands of today?

I focus on my own concerns and interests, usually that's what makes the work strong and have its own flavor. I'm not concerned about trends.

Have you ever faced difficulty in finding your own distinctive working style and how did you resolve this?

I've never had trouble with that. Again, I focus on my own concerns and the work has its own flavor.

How do you get out of being stuck with drawers block?

I just draw what I'm really excited about; for example, I was watching planet earth this one time and got really excited about snow leopards after seeing one vault down the side of a cliff after a goat. When I was in art school, it was sometimes paralyzing to have to explain every single thing that I was drawing or wanted to make work about. Later I found it was important to just do what I was excited about and felt passionate about, and to not worry so much about having to explain it. By doing that, I would at times figure out why I was excited about something or how it related to larger body of work or a larger idea.

Which other artists / illustrators, do you admire ?

Richard Mock, Pusshead, Bill Fick, Sean Starwars, Tom Huck.

Is the computer an important tool in the composition of your work or just necessary?

Absolutely not, I never use a computer to compose my artwork.

What materials do you use?

What materials don't I use!


How do you manage your time when given an illustration brief to work on?

I don't do a lot of comission illustration work; usually when I'm doing illustrations for board graphics or shirt graphics its at my own pace, or I just stay in the studio until I get it done.

What advice would you give to someone who is trying to get established in the design industry?

To accept the fact that you have to put your time in. To devote as much time to your studio practice as possible. This is compared to practicing Kung-Fu. If you practice Kung-Fu everyday, you can whoop ass. If you don't, you're going to get your ass whooped. Its also important to show your work wherever and whenever possible, because you never know what that's going to turn into.

Good luck with your paper.
Best, Dennis McNett

Heres Dennis McNett's shop window display for Barney's on Madison Ave. Dennis McNett is a Brooklyn based artist he created these huge scale masks of wolfs owls and skull on mannequins wearing designer fashion with a back drop of tribal style brightly coloured pattern. Dennis creates these woodblocks, prints, masks, and paper mache sculptures His imagery from nature, folklore, mythology, and story telling mixed with the graphic carved wood patterns from wood block prints sets a very unique stage for the store.