| The first thing you should know about former Calgary artist Michael Daines, is that he moved to Sacramento, California for love – not work. In fact, passion for the people and things around him, seems to be a motivational factor for the young artist.
With no professional training whatsoever, Daines has managed to make a name for himself in the world of rock art. He has designed posters for bands like The Incandescence, The Killer Vees, Hot Little Rocket, The Dudes as well as out-of-towners such as Montreal’s The Bell Orchestre.
Daines also illustrated the cover of this issue for Fast Forward’s annual end-of-year music poll. His hand-drawn fonts, crooked lines, use of subtle colours and patterns are deceptively simple. From a distance, his work looks minimal yet eye-catching, but on closer inspection his montage style and intricate layering builds on the page. His style makes the viewer want to go up, take a closer look and investigate.
"I don’t have much training," Daines says. "I’m not even an art school dropout or anything like that. At the very end of high school, I started making posters for all-ages shows and spent a lot of time cutting and pasting at the photocopy shop. I wandered into screen-printing at some point and I’ve only recently started drawing more."
Daines has always had an eye for design, even at a young age he was drawn to things like shape and colour.
"I remember seeing a babysitter draw random shapes on a scrap of paper and then trace the outlines further and further out until they’d meet," he says. "I was also interested in how business stuff was designed, apparently. At some point I had a catalogue from a paper supplier (when I was younger), who supplied things like business forms and those corporate inspirational posters you see everywhere and I would spend hours just looking at it."
Daines is hands-on in more ways than one. Not only does he illustrate the posters, but he likes to hit the streets and distribute them himself. He enjoys the impermanence of the medium and the fact that his artwork has a definite purpose in the world – to advertise and promote bands and rock shows.
"I like that posters allow for the building and exchange of visual identity within and between scenes," he explains.
Daines thinks one of the reasons poster art and street art in general are more popular now is because of the accessibility of screen-printing, which is the medium he works in the most.
"Spray-paint and photocopiers have always been accessible," Daines says. "But screen-printing makes it easier for people to make lots of things to put out in public that look really good. If there are more people able to make cool posters, there will be more cool posters and more interest."
Daines is a collector of things and his artistic process basically involves him drawing and gathering information that is around him. After he finishes a project, he discards what he has used and begins searching and sourcing new ideas and items. Music is often considered a very intangible form, something that you cannot hold or contain. Daines has a unique perspective on the tangibility of music in relation to art. It’s not about trying to capture an idea but about building and expanding on what the music is saying.
"Is it really intangible? At least superficially, music is often about intangible things that have a clear representation," Daines says. "Making or watching music is always very tangible. The trick with art is to not be too obvious when making something visual – unless the band has a name like ‘The Buzzing Bees.’" |
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