@fauxtableaux

Instagram: @fauxtableaux Website: www.alanfears.com  

1. What's your story? Where are you from?

I was born in Berlin in 1974 to English parents. I grew up in Eastbourne, England. For the last twenty years, I have been an Antiques dealer and musician, doing the occasional creative thing on the side.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I love colour, pattern, and faces. I like naive or outsider art and I also like to tell a story, so I try to combine those elements in my work.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

Currently, I like acrylic paints. They dry quickly and you can get some vibrant shapes happening if you apply it thick and fast.

4. What is your artistic process like?

Most days, I get up between 5 am and 6 am and go straight into my studio. The early mornings work best for me, the world feels empty and I get to see the birds work their magic. Being barely awake is good for my mind, I don’t think about what I’m doing, so I surprise myself. Either I find an image I like or think of something at random and paint it. I then build a narrative around that and see where it goes. I drink a few black coffees and listen to a quiet radio.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

People, humans, they inspire my work. I love them and hate them at the same time. Visually, I like to see colour and loose interpretations of things and people.

6. What role does art play in your life? How does it change the way you view the world?

Making art or painting is therapy for me. I get to use up my hyperactive tendencies. I have to distract myself from the world and create something almost every day, otherwise, I’ll probably get depressed if I’ve got nothing to do.

7. Where did you study?

I failed an art course at Eastbourne College, and quit a fine art degree course at Nottingham Trent University. I learnt that, for me, established art theory is restrictive and that I get restless.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years?

I see myself exactly where I am now... Working to refine the very few skills that I have.

9. What about in ten?

Hopefully alive, and possibly a little more successful.

10. What do you hope to achieve with your art?

My hope is to relax uptight humans and lighten the mood in people who look at my work. If I can’t do that, then maybe to just make a few decent pictures here and there, and to sell a few that allow me to continue making art into the future.

11. Now, tell us a little more about you as a person: what is your favourite food?

Cake. Any cake that doesn’t have real fruit attached to it.

12. Favourite book?

‘Ham on Rye’ by Charles Bukowski.

13. Favourite genre of music?

Pop, rock and soul music from 1966 to 1994.

14. What are your hobbies?

Songwriting and recording music, eating, sitting, walking, and watching films.

15. If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

An unsuccessful male model.