Josh Scurville - Illustrator
Josh Scurville is an illustrator, printmaker and all round creator from West London. Having drawn from a young age he takes inspiration from his every day life, and continues to push his unique, bold and playful figures onto different mediums.
Videography and photographs by David Wren.
Give us a quick intro about yourself?
I was born and raised in West London. I’m originally from South Acton and then when I was about four we moved to Brentford. My Mum’s French and my Dad is born and raised in Acton but his parents are Anglo-Indian. Right now I live in Ladbroke Grove.
How did you get into illustration?
Illustration wise, I’ve always just drawn since I was a kid. Every kid to me just draws and I just carried on doing it and saw where I could take it and I’m just still doing it. When I was younger I used to do a lot of papier-mache. I don’t know if you remember ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’, I used to draw them and make papier-mache volcanoes and sets. I also used to be really into Marvel comics when I was young. And then when I got a bit older I used to like drawing Greek mythology. Those are my earliest memories.
I’ve always drawn the human form. Even when I got to around fourteen, fiftee, I got really into period Japanese art and then Renaissance art, looking at different forms and figures. It’s just fun to draw. I like playing with lines and exaggerating things and I think it stems from when I was younger.
What primarily inspires and informs your work nowadays?
I’d say it’s mainly just my interests. A lot of my stuff is based around music culture and just things that I am around. I don’t really have too many inspirations. I take more influence from other artists, certain colours they might use, certain elements of their drawings, I’ll take them and try and draw it in my own way. I always come back to drawing people. People in clubs or people dancing, I guess life drawing in some weird sort of way. I just like making illustrations that I like to look at visually, I’m often not trying to represent anything specific. It’s just literally whatever I feel like drawing in the moment.
If you had to try and describe your style what would you say it is?
I honestly have no idea. I always say I don’t have a style but people are like ‘yeah, you do, you can tell you drew this’. I think it’s maybe just the line work, exaggerated lines, big shapes and colours, which represent the figures, and maybe a lot of movement as well, I’ve been told. I’d say it’s quite flat. I like to do ink drawings and then fill them in with flat colours. I kind of imagine my illustrations as if I’m doing screen print, so I think in terms of flat layers.
Tell us a bit about the different methods and processes you use?
I love screen printing. I used to screen print everything when I was at uni but I don’t have the time now. I feel like with work now everything these days is kind of for social media platforms or everything is just digital, but I like to hold it and feel like I’m actually doing it, which is why I like screen printing. That’s why every illustration I’ve done works for screen printing. I also started spray painting my illustrations up around places in lockdown, at empty warehouses, or in and around Trellick Tower. I wouldn’t call myself a graffiti artist but I just wanted to draw my illustrations on a different medium, because on a different medium it will come out completely different and have a different vibe and feel to it, and each medium is gonna bring out different things and make it feel more alive. I like things that are in the real world.
I think the illustration is a good start point for exploring other lanes for showcasing your art, rather than just being on paper, on a canvas or on a screen.
What influence has London had on your work and life?
London is what I’ve always known. And from what I’ve seen outside of London, I just know I prefer London, to the rest of the UK anyway. I like the art scene and what it offers you. It offers a lot of potential and a lot of opportunity to go and move in the field you want to move in. I love the areas as well, especially West London, I love Portobello, Shepherd’s Bush, Acton, all of that.
I do love London but if I could I would move out to a hot country. My dream would to be somewhere on the Mediterranean, in a little beach shack, like literally just a shack on stilts.
Your work is inspired a lot by culture, music and fashion?
Fashion wise, I’m not necessarily into creating clothes. I’ve obviously done designs for certain brands and companies. I just enjoy certain clothes. I’ve always been into vintage workwear and streetwear and I feel like growing up in London you get up aspects and different lanes of how people dress and I’ve sort of combined mine.
Your clothes represent a lot about you. I feel like everyone to an extent dresses how they want to portray themselves. People get attached to brand but even if you see something you like you can replicate it through something that looks like it or the same type of clothing and gives off the same image and the same style, or flip it to make it your own style. My style is definitely a combination of lots of different things that I like thrown together.
And you make beats as well?
I make beats all the time. I’ve been making beats since I was like 16 years old, but I’ve always kept them to myself. I used to have a Soundcloud and it got blocked because I used to make loads of remixes all the time. On my most-played track, I made a Lil’ Kim remix and it had like 40,000 plays. I paid for the premium version so I could see who listened to my tracks and I could see some artists that were quite big. Earl Sweatshirt used to follow me on it. I was like 17 at the time and I was like this is quite cool. I just never had that urgency to be like cool I want to go into producing. I just liked to keep them to myself. I just enjoyed making things but I’m not too fussed about people hearing it.
Do you have a dream project?
Basically my dream is to do an album cover artwork for a huge artist. Someone like Drake for instance. That would be fucking sick just because of the amount of people that would see it, like it’s gonna be on records, on CDs, blown up on billboards, all over social media platforms. And also just because I love music so it would just be really cool to see that for someone I listen to.
Have you had any thoughts on what you will illustrate for our collaboration?
I think I’m going to go quite literal. I love to draw animals and fun, kind of, not disformed, but exaggerated things. So maybe have some fun with the rabbit, maybe with some other figures around it, some stars and other shapes. I feel like a rabbit is a fun shape to play with, a lot nice lines and curves and I feel like the way I would draw a rabbit wouldn’t be how you expect a rabbit to be drawn.
