Six Foot Gallery is delighted to present its annual Summer Show, featuring thirty-four artists working in a diverse range of mediums and disciplines.

Conor McConville is a Dundee-based artist. He draws inspiration from William Hogarth’s prints, David Lynch’s films, and Giallo’s vibrant colours. He creates intricate backstories for his characters while maintaining ambiguity through surrealism, using dream logic and visual metaphors to encourage viewer engagement. Working in a wide range of mediums, including oil painting, watercolour, drawing, sculpture, photography and filmmaking, he will create his work based on the intuition of what he feels suits the idea.

He has a first-class honours degree in Contemporary Art & Contextualized Practice and has had works exhibited throughout Scotland. Working in the charity sector for over five years, he believes art is for everyone and can be a tool to understand the world around us.

Hi Conor, thanks for being with us again! Can you tell us what emotions or reactions you hope viewers experience when seeing your artwork?
Firstly, I hope people laugh, and then I want them to think about where conspiracy theories come from and the importance of critical thinking. At the time of making this piece, I was listening to a series from Last Podcast On The Left about the JFK assassination and it got me thinking about what we believe sometimes to rationalise something we can’t understand.

And also I thought Lyndon B Johnson as a topless cowboy and JFK as a centipede would be funny.

What challenges did you experience during the creation of your work and how did you overcome them?
I am trying to find a balance between realism, a good enough likeness to the figures and my style.

Are there specific advantages or challenges associated with working in your chosen mediums? Have you experimented with other mediums or techniques?
Watercolour is great because you work quite fast with it but it means you can’t take things back and paint over it (like oil or acrylic) meaning you need to think about how you want the painting to look. There are no take backsies! But I like that too, as it stops me from overthinking, meaning I can dive right into painting. I still experiment with other mediums, I love sketching with brush pens and drawing out rough ideas with highlighters.

What do you do to keep motivated and interested in your work?
Seeing art, watching films, listening to music or reading always inspires me to do more work. I try to listen to myself too and push myself when I need to but I also take breaks from making art too, I think coming back to something with a fresh pair of eyes can make a world of difference. And lastly, I think cutting ideas or ‘killing your darlings’ is crucial to any creative process.

How do you typically approach your creative process from initial inspiration to the completion of your artwork?
I usually use my phone’s notes app to write down ideas as soon as they come which gets transposed into a rough idea sketch. Next, depending on the painting I’ll take some reference photos and refine it into a composition. Once I’m happy with the layout I’ll get to work on the final piece, which can take between a day to several months to complete, for a mix of various reasons. Once the painting is finished I sometimes put it into Photoshop and tweak it a little bit to give it some film grain but I try not to edit too much and leave the painting as it’s been created.

Will your next project be a continuation of your current style or are you experimenting with something different? Can you share a glimpse of your next project?
I’m currently working on a series of watercolours called Wages Of Sin, which is a love letter to spaghetti westerns and old mediaeval art. I’ve been working on this for most of 2024, completing a short residency at Hospitalfield to work out some of the big ideas I have for it. I’m hoping to start sharing the work soon, it’s a project I’ve been keen to make a reality for a while now so it feels good to bring it to life!

You can find out more about Conor and his work on Instagram @conormcconville_art. Our Summer Open Call Exhibition runs at Six Foot Gallery until Friday 23rd August.