Shane Wimbledon is an illustrator and fine artist, his art is based on human functions especially those of the mind and mental health, his practice is both emotional and scientific, autobiographical as well as informative to those in similar situations. The materials he works with mostly brush pens, polymorphs and medication that is illustrative in nature as Wimbledon explores the landscape of the mind through automatic subconscious processes and conscious.
Self-taught or art school?
Art school, from Colchester, Braintree and Cambridge art schools and universities.
If you could own one work of art what would it be?
Anything created by zdzisław beksiński especially the landscapes of vast nothingness.
How would you describe your style?
Illustrations of mental landscapes grasping at depth in hopes to convey the feeling. sculptures of personal pain and exposure to the ugliness of the ego and what the self really is.
Is narrative important within your work?
Narrative is definitely important as it is what drives the illustration elements of my practice, the knowledge of mental health impacts on life and how it is perceived is a must in the creation process.
Who are your favourite artists and why?
My favourite artists are Shawn Coss and Zdzislaw Beksinski due to their experiences with and awareness of the themes of mental health. Shawn Coss illustrates and educates people on the various mental states through his drawings that emphasise the symptoms of the ailments. whilst Zdzislaw Beksinski has embraced the themes of mental ailments through the exploration of the mind’s depths, exposing the horror of the mind’s darknesses in his various paintings of nightmarish landscapes and the twisted creatures that occupy them.
What or who inspires your art?
What inspires my illustrations are the exploration of mental health, how it feels to have the chemicals that make up our mind jolt and alter our perceptions of what is going on around us, the memories that jump out to the forefront of the mind and the qualia of day to day life jostled together to become a soup of experience that we then call being human. Whilst the sculptures are inspired by outside interactions of the connections that an individual relies upon to function, the hive mind of the human experience is an individual unable to function as one without falling apart.
Are there any recurring themes within your work and can you tell us about them?
The recurring themes within my work are the various explorations of the mind through a project I call the paperprison, in which I showcase a journal that illustrates a daily log of emotion and impacts on the self. The other themes have been various mental landscape pieces that I use as a larger surface to explore the mind’s reasoning for being a human.
Where’s your studio and what’s it like?
I currently work where I am so that could mean drawings on the bus or parks, sculptures and canvases made in my bedroom, this allows for a more thorough use of the stimuli. ie working outside could mean higher anxiety not knowing who is around you, which could fuel the reaction creating more reactive illustrations. Working in a bedroom allows for more seclusion in a comfortable atmosphere allowing for the mind to dive deep into a meditative state and enter a state of flow directly with what is coming to the forefront of the mind with no distractions.
Do you have any studio rituals?
working outside I examine as much as possible as to enter a state of hyper-awareness making my mind on the edge and becoming outwardly reactive onto the page. While in my bedroom I do the opposite. I meditate, listen to calming music and reflect inwards to become inwardly aware of the stimuli making them more loud to translate them onto the page/sculpture.
What are you working on currently?
Currently, I am working on a few projects, I am still creating within the paperprison but trying to take a more digital playful approach to it. I am also exploring the mental landscapes in other areas that I am able to do my calming ritual within to provide other results. I am also exploring the sculptures in a more fluid way making them more than a representation of a person and more object or creature-like.
Where can we buy your art?
You can buy my art in 3 ways currently:
https://www.redbubble.com/people/Paperprison/shop and here: https://paperprison.threadless.com/ but you could also go to my website: www.paperprison.co.uk and/or email me directly at paperprison.art@gmail.com if you would like to buy something specific.
What are your ambitions?
My ambitions are to raise awareness of mental health through my art and fight the stigma that is around various ailments for example borderline personality disorder. I would also like to run a studio where I can teach the importance of art in the way of mental healths exploration/ recovery, I would also like to be able to create a type of sculpture park where the creatures that I have created through the 3d area of my practice to bring a type of life to make an inhabited area of the monsters of my mind that could then become apart of a larger collective.
