I’ve loved creating art for as long as I can remember, with my mum and sibling teaching me about it since I was in nursery, and it’s a love that followed me as I grew up. I took art and media classes all the way through school, which helped me get shortlisted for the animation award in the Scottish Youth Film Festival, and I’m currently in university studying game art and animation. I’ve always loved creating things that could never exist or work in reality, especially when it comes to animating scenes that can’t be recreated using a real camera. Realism can be fun, but there’s always been something so interesting to me about the fact that through art I can alter reality to create something fantastical.

Hi Toby! How did your artistic journey start?
I started creating art as a child, with my mum and sibling both teaching me at home. I would try and copy drawings done by my sibling to learn how they did it. The results were never the best, but it made me so happy to draw back then that I never really stopped.

How did you arrive at the theme of your work?
I moved out of my parents home in September 2023, and I wanted to make my own art to put up in my flat. I chose to do art based on Scottish folklore because it’s something my mum taught me about when I was younger, and I knew that having something based off of that would remind me of my home.

Can you walk us through your creative process?
I’ve never really had a set creative process, it always changes depending on what I’m creating. For this, I did a lot of research into the anatomy and inner workings of the creatures I had chosen to draw, then combined a lot of references to create something that would appear similar to how they might have looked.

Who influences you? Which other artists work do you love? 
Most of my art is inspired by the people closest to me, especially my mum, my sibling, and my partner. They’re all creative people but in so many different ways. Some of the art I make has inspiration from all three, whether it’s the colours, the style, the materials, most of the things I create have probably been inspired by one of them.

What emotions or reactions do you hope viewers experience when they see your artwork?
I would love it if my art inspired people to look into the folklore of wherever they’re from. The stories that people have created can be so interesting and it often makes people feel closer to where they’re from. Other than that, I don’t want any specific reaction to what I’ve made. I love the different reactions that people have had to my art already, they’re always so different and I find it so interesting to see.

Is there anything else you would like people to know about your work or your experiences as an artist?
Nothing about my work specifically, but remember that you and your art are both going to grow and change, and that’s something that you should love. Everything changes, don’t try and force what you make to stay the same forever.

See Toby’s work at our first Open Call of the year, MulticulturAlba, running at Six Foot Gallery until Thursday 14th March 2023. You can also find him on Instagram @mimicat.199