★ MEET N‘ GREET ★
nigel peake

Kelly Lynn Jones interviews Nigel Peake

So can I start off saying I love your work. When I first saw your Sheds zine, I fell in love with your drawings and I remember immediately contacting you.

Thanks. I actually remember getting your mail about ’sheds’ I had not slept in days, was in a dusty studio in the architecture school, fixing a map drawing onto 16 cabinets that spanned 20 meters.

We talked about one day doing a collaboration drawing together, I still think one day that should happen.

Hopefully - we will see what the future brings!

So Nigel where are you living right now? How does your environment inspire and shape how you think in terms of your art work?

At the moment - I live in the middle of no where in Ireland and lead an incredibly simple life of working all day and then sleeping.

I can not drive sowhen I go outit really is a case of how far my feet or bike will take me.

I have a real joy for cycling andI walk along the same road every night.

Its a simple road but it has its beauty -Isolated fields,derelicthouses, marshes, tall forests and the telegraph wiressalutethe tarmac road.

Its the kind of place where you can see eagles circling, the golden chests of migrated swallows swooping andthe darkhooded crows gathering.

In the country yousee the seasons change, from the first bud on a tree to the first dew on the grass to the first night when you realise that the summer evenings have gone to the first frost on thestar-lessnight.

I love that you actually went to school for architecture not art school for painting. Have you always been interested in architecture?

I have grown up in a very quiet place - so buildings always seemed curious to me - they still do. When I leave home to go to cities for work I spend the first day like an 8 year old kid - blown away with the colours, sounds, shapes, tones, characters and structures that gather together to make a city. So I guess in reference to the last question it is the relationship between nature and the city. I have the same joy for a winter beach as i do for a shed as i do for a toweringstructureof steel and glass

What is it about buildings that fascinate you? As you know, I too am completely obsessed with buildings, structures, etc.

Buildings fascinate because they are such huge blips in the land, we spend all our time in buildings. And when we are outside of them we are usually travelling from one to the next. To imagine the world without buildings is a strange place. So it is that - to think that many years ago, trees would have been the tallest things in the sky - then it was cathedrals and now it is office complexes in the financial districts.

Structures are a world of their own - I recently hand made a gocco zine of some structures I have seen that intrigue me. (Structures)

My favourite stage of buildings is when they are 3/4’s finished - you are able to see the skeleton of the building, with half complete staircase and dust sheets bellowing. It is at this stage there is endless possibilities for the construction - it is an ’open’ building, not yet closed to ideas.

Also, I like the fact that in farming districts, each farmer has his own tested knowledge of how to build a shed or repair a gate or fix a problem with blue twinned rope.

So I have been seeing your name around lately in the art world. Are you focusing more on showing and illustration type work? Are you also pursuing work as an architect?

I have up to recently - been a design tutor at the Architecture school where i studied (Edinburgh University) which kept me in within an architectural conversation - throwing around a hundred ideas in a day wondering if any one will develop it. I have been drawing a lot and taking on some work - so yes it has been a busy time. A good time.

Did you ever think you would start showing your work in shows or was that something that just started happening?

At times I think I am bad decision maker - in that I simply will not make a decision and instead think that it is best to simply ’do’ and that this will lead to something else.

It is great to show work in cities where I know no one - in the past few years i have travelled to Shanghai,Philadelphia and Antwerp for exhibitions. it is great to go some place new and draw and get to paint on walls and windows and live in a hotel for a week.

I love Russell and Julie from Analogue Books. I havent met them in person but they seem to be lovely people. How did you come in contact and start working with them? I ask since they were the ones who showed me your work a year ago.

Analogue books is a store in Edinburgh. The finest store in Edinburgh.

I had been living in Edinburgh for a few years before it opened and I remember one of my friends telling me about it, so Inaivelywent in with a drawing - without really a motive and the bearded man (who turned out to be Russell) was kind to me and I have had the pleasure of their friendship since.

Edinburgh is a relatively small place , everything within walking distance, and if you want a place to be on your way home then it is easy to do so.

Analogue was in the six or seven years i lived there was always in that sense on the way home.

They produce books, zines,exhibitions,prints (Julie’s one half of Early Griffin) andthey are always quick to make a cup of tea and share a packet of chocolate coated hob nobs and talk about what we could do next or about the road works outside their store or how much both of them enjoy porridge.

Russell likes to think I am a bad speller.

I like to think that Analogue (Russell, Julie and Rudy) are some of the nicest and genuine people I know.

What are some projects that you want to do in the future?

There are so many things I would love to do.

Top three in no order - It would be a joy to :

i. Build a house to call my home

ii. Draw a cathedral in France at a 1:1 scale

iii. Be involved in an artist residency some place where the buildings and forests are new to me.

I also want to point out that I really think the maps you do are so incredible. You use so many various shapes, lines, letters, all sizes, colors, etc. They are each so intricate and special. What do maps mean to you?

It is difficult to say what maps actually mean to me - but they are forms of documenting a past event. I read this recently and thought it was interesting

"The map is the place where things are : reality is everything that is on the map." I am not sure who actually said this but resonates with me. Drawing maps has most likely come from years of looking atmaster-plans- but I have always been interested in remembering things that I saw on a walk or car journey - especially if it is a routine trip.I could write ten pages about why I draw maps - butI am currently working on a book of ’Maps’ (published by Analogue) due to be out in the middle of this winter so perhaps that will explain it better.

Since this is an interview I would like to throw in the normal, who or what influences you in your day to day of creation?

Influences are always difficult, some people’s work I enjoy include - Francis Ponge, John Steinbeck, Picasso, Brian Wilson and am alwaysimpressedby the ways of Harry Houdini.

Amongst other things I enjoy - branches, cathedrals, benches in parks, forests, train rides looking backwards, being on a bike for a few days, 2b pencils, walking along my home roads, radio documentaries, typing things, misunderstanding, listening to things, flags, sheds, throwing a ball, conversations, maps, history books, stories from old people, cricket, clearings in forests, paths, long grass, fences, walking through an unknown city at night time, visits to the cinema, things that are almost broken, colours, the fall, the spring, facts and fiction, water, paper, photography, film, the process of making something, heavy rocks, chairs, museums, sheds, radio 4 and encyclopaedias.

Lastly name a song that you are loving right now and anything thing else that you would like to share.

I listen to alot of music - but at the moment I really enjoy listening to two different albums that have the same name.

"Solo Piano" by Philip Glass and also by Gonzales and this evening as I type this the album by Jaylib sounds nice and loud.

But the one thing for sure that I love listening to - is the Test match cricket commentary on BBC radio 4 - It is the finest drawing companion.

Thank you Nigel for being part of Little Paper Press with your limited edition print.

Really great to be involved - and thank you.

 

**photo credit to - Vala Dóra Jónsdóttir