Nick Ashton: DRAGONS WILL GET YOU NOWHERE

Artist Nick Ashton tells us why ignoring to your teacher is an artform

“I had an art teacher who would get us to draw a bowl of fruit and I would always draw a dragon wrapped around it or something like that. He would go spare and tell me I’d never amount to anything drawing that kind of stuff. 

“Ten years later I was working on the promotion for Disneys’ How to Train Your Dragon, so it was a big middle finger to him.”

Nick Ashton, sometimes known as the Chicken Monster (you’ll have to ask him about that one), is an artist in residence with the Medway creative movement Nucleus Arts. At the Halpern Pop Gallery space on Rochester High Street, we found Nick manning the illustration exhibition in which a number of his pieces were on display.

“There’s two types of people, some who will take a statement like that to heart and not do it, and others who will say ‘sod you’ and do it anyway.” And that he did.

Having been part of a digital team designing film advertising and working with the likes of  Universal, Disney, Netflix, PlayStation, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers and Cartoon Network, Nick has gone back to the drawing board, literally, to get back in the habit of illustration.

“I actually started with fine art originally and then went into graphic design - both designing digitally and on print advertising. My old company was great fun, but very intense and I got further away from actually doing art myself as I was teaching others,” he explains.

Having found a call out for artists to take up studio space at Nucleus Arts in Medway, Nick made the decision to go freelance and rejoin his quest for, well, lots of creative stuff.

“It’s a difficult one, because I still haven't really worked out what I actually am,” he says. “I guess I describe myself as a commercial illustrator because so many people ask me to different styles. “Quite often I am commission-based and the majority of stuff I do is portraits for people. 

“Perhaps for birthdays, wedding invites or even people when they leave work having a personalised illustration.”

As a cartoonist Nick is involved in some amazingly different projects, including designing a “giant climate change baby” that is due to turn heads towards the London skies very soon (watch out for it on the news).

“On the freelancing site Yuno Juno, I just pitched for the work and won it,” he says. “I think the idea behind it, is a bit like the Trump baby blimp. But it is going to be an 8m tall baby with a “guess my weight in CO2” type slogan.

“They are a bit under cover so we don’t know if it is the same company.”

Having moved to Chatham almost a decade ago, Nucleus Arts - the art focused support system created by philanthropist Hilary Halpern - is allowing local creatives to do what they do best, whether that is creating ceramics, jewellery or drawing cartoons.

“I’ve been drawing non stop for the last year, and it feels great as that’s what always wanted to do,” says NIck. “There are several artists in residence, and we also do a lot of workshops so that the community can get involved. For example, I do a kids drawing workshop - get people drawing from the imagination.

“So perhaps they don’t know what they want to draw, so i will try to help them develop some ideas.”

Using a range of styles Nick has created everything from Grand Theft Auto-style wedding invites, to his popular Stranger Things piece (pictured) and from graphic novels to augmented reality and games.

“I'm definitely a massive geek, my exhibition was called ‘Monster Armour - The Drawings of a Man Child’. It was dedicated towards my old art teacher, but he didn't take the invite very well.

“But I have to say, of all the art teachers I’ve had over the years, the one who gave me the most inspiration was him, so I’d quite like to thank him. Inadvertently, by being a terrible teacher, he drove me on.”

For more information visit chickenmonster.co.uk