How does the artist, holed up all day in the studio, rekindle his imagination when a block sets in?

In Dylan Izaak’s case, he goes to see Wendy and Gloria, two ladies with shapely jowls and impeccable manners… well, apart from the incessant grunting. “I go to see them because pigs are the friendliest animals. They are easy to keep, they do all their stuff in one part of the field and they love a good scratch under the chin. They give a deep grunt and then fall over.”

His visits to the muddy patch next to his studio have become more frequent since he was named one of 12 official Olympic 2012 artists two years ago. The extra publicity meant his work suddenly reached a massive audience.

“It was a good platform to get people to see the work,” he tells The Guide, before a collection of his paintings – including specially commissioned originals of Brighton scenes – opens at Artique Gallery and he comes to the city to celebrate his first solo show here.

Izaak turned his bright colour blocks and wonky icons to London’s skyline and events for last year’s sporting phenom-enon. There were cyclists with balloon-like thighs streaming down The Mall in one picture; athletes from every discipline parading down a typical British street in another. “To be honest, a lot of it was corporate stuff, so it wasn’t available to the public as much as I wanted it to be,” he reveals.

“The best thing was that people wanted to talk about my work, write about it, but I was working a year before the Olympics and by the time it came round I was sick of it.”

Hard work and a challenge is nothing for Stratford-upon-Avon-based Izaak. Not only does he work from early morning to midnight five days a week, with only a few hours off to see his wife and two children, he is cut-off from the world in his studio. He has only the radio for company.

Yet Izaak is far from the troubled, alienated artist. That much is clear from his work. There is humour and exuberance. These have developed, in part, because he is self-taught.

“I didn’t even get my GCSE art. I did the work but didn’t bother handing it in. I always thought if I went on to study it, other people would influence me. “I was avidly thinking, ‘I want one style. I don’t want to be influenced by anything. I’ll do it myself.’”

When he left school, he returned to Australia where his father had moved the family. Dylan would go for the Australian summer and come back to Britain for our summer. He earned a living making conservative, architectural-style paintings and sketches of Sydney Opera House, the harbour bridge and other city scenes. “The first year I went over I was lazy, just messing about going round bars. Things got so bad I was down to seven dollars. I realised I had to pull my finger out, so I started doing some drawings.

“When they sold out, I went back to the printers and got as much printed as I could afford. I would carry as much as I could back and forth. By the end of it, I worked out I had sold 115,000 originals and prints.”

Change of tack

He soon began to tire of the “oddballs” on the street who would pester him while he worked. More pressing, though, was the tedium of churning out accurate paintings. “There was no expression in those paintings, so I started to make paintings of wonky buildings on the side. I realised this is what I love doing but I never thought anyone would want it.”

When he returned to England permanently, he had a brainwave: to open a gallery on a narrow boat on the river. “I think a lot of people would come on just to have a nosey round the boat, but once they were on board I would lock ’em in so they had to buy,” he jokes. “It was very effective but not so good for repeat custom.”

In reality, having his own space meant he could exhibit the works he enjoyed painting. He could also avoid paying a gallery or having to rent a space. Once interest in his work took off, he was soon selling to other galleries and struggling to find time to run the gallery – never mind paint. He sold The Barge Gallery on as a going concern and now, with a publisher, he can focus all his efforts on making the labour-intensive pictures for the 150 plus galleries that want to stock Izaak originals.

Supply and demand

He can only make two to three paintings every couple of weeks because he paints on aluminium, which makes for the sharp contrast between glossy paint and metal. He stencils the metal canvas first then adds an undercoat. He draws out his outline again as he adds odd shapes, brings out a building’s character, before painting over more coats to cover up his initial outlines. The final black lines to define the colour blocks come last.

The slow process means his issue now is how to fulfil demand – and that can only mean one thing.

“It’s getting busier and while I’m not complaining there is only a certain amount I can produce. And once the demand outstrips supply, prices go up.”

  • Dylan Izaak, Artique Gallery, Market Street, Brighton
  • Free. Dylan Izaak will appear at Artique Gallery tomorrow from 2pm to 4pm. Call 01273 710660 to book a place.