For years I obsessed over my art style. Thinking about the marks and energy on the canvas. But I never really thought about what I looked like. Not the ideas behind the work, but how I show up next to it. It finally hit me that maybe I should look a bit more like my art. At the moment I dress fairly normal while my art is very different and original.
That kicked off a whole experiment.
The Workshop I Built in ChatGPT
Now I love a system, so I built myself a branding workshop in ChatGPT. I will spare you all the nerdy parts, but one of the first tasks it gave me was simple. Make three mood boards. Artist identity. Material and mood. Cultural references.
I had made moodboards before but never like this
Mood Board One: Artist Identity
I started by looking at how I show up visually. Not my paintings. Me. I never really thought about what I wear as an artist. But the more I looked, the more obvious it felt. Pop stars dress to match their sound. So why shouldn’t artists dress to match their visual world.
I pulled together a moodboard of jackets, boots, poses (ways of standing or sitting for photos). I am not the best at posing with my work, it always feels a bit awkward. So I paid attention to poses that felt more natural. Sitting on a stool. Leaning forward. Holding a brush. Not the ones with the drapey flexible Twenty year olds, I don’t think I could pull those off.
Some outfits were far too colourful. My art is already colourful and I want it to be the star. But the shapes and attitude were useful. I loved the grungy jackets and boots with character. The kind of pieces that feel like they belong in the same world as my graffiti energy marks.
I even found the Doc Martin perfect boots but not in my size. So I did the next best thing. I painted my own.
Painting My Boots
I bought a pair of plain black high tops boots and a fabric pen from Amazon. I started doodling the same shapes and symbols that show up in my paintings. Hearts, lines, repeated words. It worked, but the white didn’t ping out as much as I would have liked. So I switched to Daler Rowney fluid acrylic in an applicator bottle. It behaves in an imperfect way which I actually like. Some bits go on smooth. Some go on blobby. That rawness fits my world better than anything neat. I finished them off with red laces and I love them.
Getting Braver with a Jacket
Once the boots worked, I went bigger. A black jacket this time. I used the same Daler Rowneys acrylic because it gives that slight grit and texture. My work is not polished. I do not want my clothes to look polished either. I added symbols, words, lines, the same visual language from my paintings.
This was the first time I felt like I was literally wearing my art.
Mood Board Two: Material and Mood
This board was about the world around my art. Backgrounds, studio walls, textures. I went hunting for concrete, rough surfaces, scribbles, wires, anything messy, gritty or unpolished.
Seeing those textures all together sparked an idea. I realised I needed a wall that felt like part of the same world. Not a clean backdrop. Something with the same energy as my paintings. That is where the idea for a graffiti wall came from.
Mood Board Three: Cultural References
The last board was all punk zines, photocopied flyers, rough typography and messy layouts. That gave me direction for how my website and social graphics might evolve. I am not rebranding everything in one go. I am letting the visual world develop, then I will update my website last.
The Graffiti Wall
Once I saw those rough wall textures, I decidedI needed a space that felt like part of the same universe as my paintings. So I created a graffiti wall. It is far from polished and that is the point. It gives me a backdrop for shoots that fits the tone of my work.
It makes everything feel more intentional. It also means I am not photographing colourful work against a plain wall that has nothing to do with the mood of the art.
What I Learned
I had no idea where this experiment would lead. I only knew that I looked kind of boring next to my work.
Creating my own clothes and wall changed that. I am starting to actually look like the artist who made the work.