|
Wallpaper for weirdos >> Mutations assembles the work of rocking Montreal poster artist Billy Mavreas by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
Mirror: One of the recurring themes in your work is the use of "alien languages." Is this for purely decorative purposes, or are you actually communicating something? Billy Mavreas: A little bit of everything. I've been into calligraphy since I was a teen, and I decided to just go for pure style. Sometimes I hide actual human languages in the curves of the scripts. I've got my own internal symbol system, so when I see a particular shape, it means something to me. I'll then replicate the shape, or whatever. M: Another recurring theme in your work are these squishy, little, almost-too-real cartoon characters that carry a certain menace to them. Are you frightened of cartoon characters? Were you bitten by one as a child? BM: What other people consider scary, I actually think is rather cute. I like these little guys. They are my friends. They populate my world. I want to share them. M: When designing a poster for a particular artist or musician, sometimes you take their image and turn them into psychedelic mongoloids... BM: If you're doing a poster for someone, but you don't really know what kinds of themes they explore in their own work, you might as well take a picture of them and fuck with it... excuse me, play with it, in order to make it a kind of portrait of them, from me, and not some representation of their own work. M: Do you even care what these people do? BM: I want them to be happy, so that if they ever make it big, they'll commission me to do a living room piece for lots of money. M: It's been speculated that you operate not necessarily on a higher plane of perception, but on a different plane from most other human beings. Is this true? BM: I don't think that I am capable of answering that question on this frequency. Mutations launch takes place at 5300 St-Laurent, Saturday, Oct. 25, 6pm, free
|
Posters play an important part in defining the spirit of a particular musical movements. Think of the psychedelic Fillmore posters of '60s San Francisco, or the ransom note aesthetic of punk publicity. Local madcap Billy Mavreas, whose work has huckstered everything from Yawp!'s poetry readings to Hazy Azure's speed-metal blowouts (he's also done posters for everyone from old schoolers the Nils and the Asexuals to Flounger and Groovy Aardvark), shows a little of both styles. You might say the designs in his new book, Mutations, a collection of street stuff from the past 11 years, are sort of psychedelic ransom notes from some cross-eyed, sex-crazed alien slug god. Or, um, something like that.