Playful, balanced and colourful is how Josephine Hicks describes her vibrant murals …
My passion in art and creativity was unavoidable. As a kid, I mainlined playing, making and artistic experimentation. My older brother Edd and I grew up in an odd ball-bohemian household – our parents were art therapists in the 1990s and we were the southern outsiders in a large mining town in Nottinghamshire. The walls at home were brightly coloured, decorated with theatre posters and paintings, mis-matching furniture, with a dressing-up chest that housed all kinds of weird outfits, and a walk-in cupboard that was full of recycled supplies, craft bits and bobs for my brother, me and the many blow-in kids in the neighbourhood to play with.
As a result, my curiosity and visual language was developed from a young age through exhibition visits, theatre involvement and craft workshops. I went on to study Fine Art at Liverpool’s John Moore University. I graduated in 2007, a year before the city was awarded the European capital of culture, when the place was buzzing with energy. An influx of money meant that art organisations were able to put on really brilliant, engaging events and exhibitions. At the same time, Liverpool was awash with crumbling Victorian warehouses, which allowed the creative industries cheap and accessible space to grow – something, sadly, the Dublin art scene is hugely lacking, facing closure after closure of these vital creative spaces.
Post graduation, I worked as a baker as it allowed me the afternoons and evenings to progress a little screen print studio in the warehouse where I lived. Throughout my 20s, I experimented with hand cut paper, print and painting at festivals. My brother was heavily involved in the burgeoning street art scene in Southampton and London, so he encouraged me to move to London and helped me break into the mural scene there, which went from strength to strength.
I describe my style as playful with strong colour, analogue and handmade. I see my work as akin to building worlds and images, like little ecosystems that balance and hold each other up. I’ve never been much of a doodler or someone who can just make something up straight out of my head. My work usually starts with visual inputs or seeds of reference, which allows me to bounce off them, then run off on weird tangents. This may involve flicking through online photo archives, old magazines, leafing through boxes and boxes of screen mono prints, cutting up catalogues and painted papers. Scissors, a craft knife, paint and all the other accidental serendipitous moments usually create a far more interesting final outcome than if I were to stick to the iPad and Photoshop.
I work from my little studio in Flux in the heart of the city centre, I feel extremely lucky to be in there after only moving to Dublin two years ago. I’ve realised that I can put up with less space if the location is lively with great people around me and lots going on. Over the years, I’ve worked with many different organisations, brands and independents. I really enjoy the new pathways that commissions can send me on. Recent examples include a tropical mural for the historic Botany building in Trinity College Dublin, murals in Shoreditch, a large mural in Glasgow, illustrations for the National Trust and, more recently, a 30m high atrium art commission for the new KPMG building – yet to be revealed!
Mural jobs are very physical, and require lots of planning and problem-solving dealing with scissor lifts, talking to the public and weather issues. One of my favourite projects was a huge commission for Leeds Train Station: ‘Here we go now’. I was given lcreative control in the design, transforming a dull wall and enlivening the newly developed canal side of the station. The wall was made up of lots of different sections and cast concrete, which led to a really fun design. I think it’s important to embrace the environment and work with it rather than trying to over lay an image that will fight against it.
I’m working on quite a different project at the moment for the Cairn Community Games. We’ll be making a huge temporary floor mural with children, inspired by Art Attack (the ITV programme from the 1990s). It’s the first time I’ve ever done this sort of thing, so it requires a lot of testing, and also a wing and prayer that it’ll all work out!
Where possible, I try and keep normal hours working in the studio, but routines aren’t that easy to keep when you do this sort of thing. Jobs sometimes all come at once and often require traveling to different cities or countries. Since moving to Dublin, I joined a great tennis club (LCC in Rathmines), reigniting my passion for the sport. I find it a really refreshing contrast, both in the activity and community there.
I enjoy the variety of my work. As for advice to give others, I always say keep making and experimenting with your hands. Digital tools and computers are helpful and certainly speed things up, giving options for infinite changes. However, I think it’s important to keep messing around with materials and ideas in real life – that way your unique creativity has a chance to shine through. It’s probably the best way we, as visual artists, stay employed as the surge to AI is coming over the hill. Stay curious.
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