“Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination.” – Walt Disney
There’s something powerful about childhood imagination. The kind that turns a stick into a lightsaber (or as my friend Todd and I used, ringette sticks) or a cardboard box into the Batmobile. Few artists capture that sense of wonder and pretend as Craig Davison. He is most known for his nostalgic paintings of kids acting as their favorite heroes, Davison’s work is a salute to fandom. With a background in animation, sculpture, and illustration, his journey is as colorful as the characters he paints.
Fandom Blast had the chance to chat with Craig about his pop culture inspirations and the connection between fandom and art.
Your artwork perfectly captures the imagination of childhood. What first inspired you to explore that theme in your art?
At that point in my career, I had been a sculptor for quite some time, but I wanted to try my hand at painting, but couldn’t think of anything to spark an idea. Then I noticed our son who was about nine or 10 at the time crawling along the grass in the garden, off in a world of his own, imagining he was only knows what .
That made me think of my own childhood, and I recalled riding around on my bike, imagining I was an Apache warrior fighting General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. So my first real painting was a young boy standing in a field of corn, trees in the background, with his bike by his feet, holding a stick with a feather in his hair.
I was happy with the energy of the painting and other people liked it too, I was lucky and I sold the original painting very quickly. It felt as if I was onto something but wanted to see if I could capture the imagination of a child on the convincingly.
I decided to strip away the background and and painted a boy on his bike, again with a feather in his hair but this time I added not the literal shadow but what he was imagining in his head of an indigenous American warrior on a horse. The more I thought about it the more ideas flowed and it simply snowballed from there and I began painting children and their childhood heroes.
You have a diverse range of art experience, from animation to sculpture to painting. How have those different experiences shaped your art today?
I don’t really see any barrier between all three disciplines, they are all part of the same ability. The same thought process goes into each of them, in a painting you’re still trying to animate the characters even if it is a still image, you, still need to know what the characters look like from any given direction to make it look right, that’s where your sculpting skills help.
You draw to help you visualise a sculpture and a series of drawings is animation it’s all the same thing.
One of the most recognizable aspects of your work is the way children imagine themselves as iconic heroes. What is your inspiration when combining nostalgia with pop culture?
I suppose the answer to this question go straight back to the first question . Once I’d found a way to get the kids imagination on canvas. It opened up so many possibilities. First of all, I started with my own childhood heroes, the spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen,Evel Knievel, the bionic man and Spartacus. Doing that changed things again and people were able to relate very easily to the paintings with similar shared memories.
Following on from that people started getting in touch with me and suggesting ideas from their own experiences so the concept grew and grew.
You might also like: He-Man, Nostalgia and Animation: An Interview with Animator, Justin Rasch
You’ve painted scenes from Star Wars and Superheroes, as well as classic adventurers. Is there a character or universe that holds special meaning for you?
I remember queuing as a 10-year-old to see Star Wars when it first came out. I loved reading comics as a kid, mainly 2000 AD, but also English reprints of early Marvel, too, so those always appear in my paintings because they’re part of my upbringing. Both worlds have many great things, and each image always offers something unique.
That said, my biggest influence as a child had to be the films of Ray Harryhausen, particularly Jason and the Argonauts, which I still love to this day. There is a beautiful, hands-on magic to his stop-motion creatures that is compelling to watch. I recently saw an exhibition of his work that featured one of the skeletons from the climax of Jason and the Argonauts. It was only around five or six inches tall, but was able to act convincingly alongside humans thanks to Ray’s immense talent.
With so many recognizable references in your work, how do you strike a balance between honouring fan-favourite icons and telling your own story through the art?
Even when painting characters that other people have suggested, I have to have some sort of connection; that’s why I don’t tend to do sports stars, as I’m not particularly into sports. To do any painting justice there has to be a little bit of your heart in there somewhere, a good example of this is a painting of Top Gun, I’ve never seen it but I could relate to that child imagining he was in a jet plane so that was my way into the idea.
I also like to paint totally different subject matter when I need a break or an ideal in my head that I have to get out, anything from burlesque dancers, boxers or buffaloes and anything in between,many of which I never show to anyone.
Fandoms are known for being passionate and vocal. Do you ever think about how fans will react to your interpretations of beloved characters, and how has the response been from the fan community?
The only comments I do see are the ones on my own social media feeds, which are always really kind and appreciative, which I am grateful for. I’m sure that there are people who don’t like what I do at all which is fine and to be expected.
I’m sure that there are negative comments about my work, if I wanted to find them, which are all as valid as the positive comments. Many of them, I’m sure, I’d agree with, making me my own worst critic. But I think any artist should be creating for themselves, if they find an audience that likes what they do, great but don’t try and create for the audience, it will always be soulless.
You can find Craig Davison’s art on his official website.
