EXHIBITION: ‘ILLUMINATE - THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION’
Anglesea art space
10-21 june 2021
Mark Trinham Interview
HG: The artworks you are exhibiting are part of the creative process for your very first illustrated book ‘Bush Tales, The Quest’, with writer Ali Corke. How did that collaboration come about?
MT: I actually knew Ali’s daughter first through the Conservation Ecology Centre in Cape Otway. I was supportive of what they are doing down there as a research centre, and Ali had seen my Wildlife Card Collection, which was 135 paintings of wildlife I developed over about an eight year period. She had those on her radar and really wanted me to illustrate her book, so when she mentioned that to her daughter it all came together and she contacted me. Ali had written the story and it was close to my heart, it’s about animals, conservation and bringing the awareness of Australian wildlife and conservation to the younger people and hopefully their parents as they read it. The book is written for kids about 10 years or older. It’s an adventure story but also a bit of a science book, every double page spread is about an animal and has lots of factual information.
HG: How long ago did you start working on it?
Three to four years ago and then later in 2019 I started illustrating fifty roughly A3 sized paintings. I finished in springtime 2020 and we had it self-published just before Christmas. I did all the graphic design and layout, and I have friends who are really great environmental printers in East Gippsland called Black Rainbow Printing, who were Australia’s first sustainable printers. We then sent the books to Melbourne to get saddle stitched bound.
HG: What’s been the process to develop the illustrations?
MT: It started with getting familiar with the story and a couple of trips to the Otways. Originally the story is based on a piece of land that was going to be a wildlife centre, the story take us on that walk. The Conservation Ecology Centre has since purchased a fifty acre property just out of Apollo Bay that has been turned into a wildlife park called Wildlife Wonders. The book is also about promoting the conservation work they are doing. I was familiar with the landscape and the story, so I started coming up with sketches and thumbnail storyboards.
HG: Did you work from photographs or memory? And what resources did you use to get develop these intricate scenarios?
MT: The original sketches are from memory and they’re playful and adventurous. Then I usually do a final sketch that I transfer onto paper to paint - that’s when I may use some photographic reference. I had some of my own photographs, and I spent time hanging out with the quolls at the wildlife centre in Cape Otway to observe them. But I’ve observed animals all my life. I grew up on a farm with lots of animals, so I’m familiar with how they act and move.
When I come to the finished artworks, I use acrylic signwriter paints that come in one litre tins, the same brand of paint I started using thirty years ago when I was doing murals, made by Viponds in Melbourne. I have a collection of primary colours so I can mix my own range. I generally try to do the backgrounds in a watercolour style, then to bring the animal forward and give them some depth, I usually start with a dark background and build up layers by dry brushing over the top, so they’re quite thick. There’s a contrast of styles in each painting – light to dark watercolour style, then dark to light which is more of a gouache opaque style.
HG: As a self-taught sculptor, tell us a little bit of the other work you do, in particularly your public art and playground commissions.
MT: I would say 95% of my work at the moment, and over the last 20 years, has been sculpture - large scale public art and installation in timber, stone and steel. In the early days it started with murals and mosaic and then timber.
HG: The wooden seats you have crafted along Fisherman’s Beach have beautiful illustrative metal inlays.
MT: Yes, they’ve naturally evolved from my graphic design background.
I went to a tech school which helped with my hands-on skills with woodwork and metalwork, and of course growing up on a farm, you’re always building things. I did art and design in Year 12 at a TAFE, then went straight into university to complete a three year diploma in graphic design, majoring in illustration. After I graduated, I worked in a graphic design studio in Fitzroy for a year. That’s when computers just started to be used! We had about half a dozen designers all working in one room which was fantastic, but a lot of our clients were getting inhouse designers, so the workload started to really drop off. The only thing to do was to become a freelance artist. I was really excited to create my first book cover for Penguin books in 1989, and I did a lot of odd jobs for various design studios. I met with a guy in St Kilda who was a surfer and we dreamt up an idea to create a surf wear company called Blue Earth.
At the same time I got involved in environmental action groups in Melbourne such as the Rainforest Action Group, Friends of the Earth - and I became an activist. Part of my strength was an ability to illustrate and design posters and lots of stickers to create strong visuals for these environment networks.
Blue Earth was aimed at the surfing industry, but it was all pretty hard hitting environmental messages, so I went to town with my skills - there’s one or two examples on my website. During this time I moved to Torquay, and the rag trade began to suffer due to the recession. We were producing Australian made, locally printed, unbleached organic cotton and natural dyes, so in the end we just couldn’t financially compete with other surfing companies who would have been using off shore companies to make their products. There was no-one else doing what we were doing. We were twenty years ahead of Patagonia!
HG: As a musician who also started up the Cowrie Market and Night Jar Festival, and someone who draws, paints and sculpts, do you find you have to enter a different creative headspace, or is it all essentially about the process of problem solving?
MT: It’s all about management, having ideas and finding ways to take it through to a finished product. The event organising came about because I was performing as a musician and there were no opportunities to perform - no local venues or an arts centre. So I started to organise outdoor events and performing at markets. I had to create my own opportunities to create a space, or an event, so I could get my music out there and help provide spaces for others to perform and share skills, whether it was a visual exhibition or a music gig. Once I built some experience, I got involved in other people’s events, and that was all a part of developing and being involved with Surf Coast Arts Inc, being connected with Regional Arts Victoria, travelling around to their events and RAV coming to our events. We did a couple of really great big projects around 2000, like Fertile Ground which were large outdoor installations photographed from the air in different regions.
HG: I overheard you saying at the Illuminate – Art of Illustration opening that you would like to do more painting…
MT: I enjoy the painting, so I would like to explore more of my own fine art practice. I feel as though I want to develop at another level, I’d like to tell my own story. Whether it’s through writing, or interpreting dreams and thoughts, concepts of life and society, the work will ultimately be about nature and conservation. I like the idea of being a bit more abstract and surreal, looser with my style and incorporating painting with sculpture. But I need time to experiment and develop.
HG: Mark’s friend enters the gallery and says how he has joked with him over the years about becoming a tattoo artist, with tattoo gun in hand…
MT: (laughs) I actually thought about that years ago, because if I ever had a tattoo, I’d design it myself. A lot of the work I did for Blue Earth was black and white and nature-based design, which would have leant itself perfectly to tattooing!
HG: His friend and I are up for the challenge! :^D
> www.marktrinham.com.au
> www.instagram.com/marktrinham
Mark was interviewed by Julie Dyer during the Surf Coast Shire’s Portal project during the 2020 Covid lockdown.
You can view it here https://www.marktrinham.com.au/surf-coast-arts-trail-interview/
MARK’S BIO
Mark Trinham has been learning about the local Flora and Fauna of the Surfcoast and Otway Ranges for 30 years whilst living in Jan Juc. Recently he illustrated the children's book 'Bush Tales - the Quest', written by Ali Corke who became aware of Mark through the 135 illustrated Landcare Wildlife Collector cards he produced between 2008 and 2014. He began illustrating professionally after completing a Diploma in Graphic Design in 1988, working briefly in a Melbourne Design Studio before going freelance, illustrating a novel cover for Penguin Books and then designing predominantly for a variety of environmental groups which led to Mark establishing Blue Earth, a clothing company whose products were adorned with his strong environmental messages and artworks. Mark is often more widely recognised for his career path as a sculptor, public artist, musician and event organiser.
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