www.beatmag.net/march06/gallery.htm
Chris Drury
Chris Drury, 29, is perhaps best known for his image-making role in Fingathing for whom he has done much distinctive artwork, website design and "a one hour live visual show with animated atomic drops, psychopathic flumps, monster movies, and other finger fun."
Drury grew up in Runcorn Cheshire but "flew the coup in '94 when I went and studied Graphic Design in Manchester. After leaving Salford Uni in '96 I floated through a few dead end jobs until I finally got a proper job, designing stationery, packaging and greeting cards. It was a tedious fucking role. If you want to hunt down some of my early work I suggest you visit your local Poundstretcher, as that's where most of it ended up - look out for the Grafix logo!"
In 2000 "the weight of the office broke my back" and Drury decided to go it alone. Since then he's had successful exhibitions in Bristol, Manchester and London, and designs flyers for the club night Hideous Kinky, as well as his continuing collaboration with Fingathing...
Long Live Forever
"This is one design of three for my future tee-shirt project. I wanted to find a theme to base all the designs around. One subject that fascinates me is the future, especially for us animals and the earth itself. I grew up on apocalyptic movies like 'Threads', 'Z For Zachariah', 'When The Wind Blows', etc, all of which found a home in my brain.
It's not the most uplifting subject but its one I can elaborate on. At least when we are extinct something else will eventually take over, and that's the idea: long live forever."
Maow
"'Maow' is a piece taken from an exhibition I did a few years back for the lads at the Eat The Beat record shop in Bristol. Basically the idea for the drawing came to me whilst watching the movie 'The Deer Hunter'. There's a scene in which two of the vets are captured by the Viet Cong and are forced to play Russian Roulette for the gambling amusement of their captors. The character who orders the soldiers to pull the trigger, to me, sounds like some nasty little cat. So I redrew the scene but with cats instead of humans, for no reason other than my own twisted amusement."
Big Red Nebula Band
"This artwork was created for my two chums Parker and Sneak [AKA Fingathing] as a means of housing their most awesome piece of music to date: Fingathing and the Big Red Nebula Band. The album sounds like some spaced out other world fantasy, so I tried to create artwork that would enforce that. Inside I invented some gobbledy gook astrological chart with all elements relating to particular tracks. I am proper made up with this record, I think we pulled out all the stops for this one."
Bangs And Whistles
"Yet again this artwork (soon to be printed as canvasses for the Smudge Gallery in London) was created for The Big Red Nebula Band Album. The short of it: Big Bang (the giant baby robot) was created by Whistles, who I imagine to be like a Gepetto, from 'Pinocchio', some lonely toy maker but from space. Together they live in a ship that resembles a massive toy doll head. Big Bang doesn't have a head yet, as he isn't finished, which makes him frustrated and causes him to bang his massive little metal feet on the ground."
Krab
"Krab are my invention, they are a deaf mental band. They used to be called Killdren, but now they are called Krab. They are Norwegian, they boo in churches and they burn Christmas cards. Just a bit of fun really."
Flowerdrum Bags
"Flowerdrum bags are boho, handmade ladies bags of all shapes and sizes, made from found fabrics in very small quantities each with their own little individual traits. Made in Kuala Lumpur, they are sexy little summery must-haves for the girl with her ear to the ground. Lina, the creator, features in the illustration above. I wanted to eternalise her, as the figurehead of the company, a tree seemed like a fitting place for her to be."
www.beatmag.net/march06/gallery.htm