In conversation with Alan Dearling
His new exhibition is taking place at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath
14 January 2025 to 13 April 2025 10:30 am to 5:00 pm
Perry Harris is a cartoonist and landscape artist who uses paint and digital colour to bring Bath to life. He has worked in a variety of areas: a cartoonist for punk fanzines, stage scenery painter, architectural illustrator and art technician. He currently balances being a school caretaker with creating his own artwork.
Alan: Hiya, Perry. We’ve been in occasional contact for quite a few years. It’s nice now to catch up with you and ask some of the questions that have intrigued me. To start with…back when you were in your school-days, did you intend to become some sort of artist?
Perry: Hello, Alan. Art was the only thing that I really enjoyed, maybe history…although I think I just liked drawing knights and castles, then, when I was about 13, I discovered rock music and obsessively drew Rod Stewart & The Faces until one night John Peel played ‘White Riot’ and I dropped Rod. To be honest, he’d been testing my loyalty for a while!
Alan: On various on-line sites you describe your background in ‘art’ as being pretty eclectic. For instance:
“…a cartoonist for punk fanzines, stage scenery painter, architectural illustrator and art technician.”
Did you engage in any formal art training?
Perry: Going to art college was the only thing I wanted to do after school, so I went to Salisbury College of Art and did a course in Graphic Design & Illustration, although I was really only interested in drawing punk rocker cartoons. It was there I met Tom Vague, at that time there weren’t that many people into punk (in Salisbury), so we were sort of naturally drawn to each other and ‘Vague’ fanzine was soon established. Tom was the driving force of Vague and he made it into the phenomenon that it is, although, somehow, I’ve continued to draw Vague cartoons sporadically (for over 45 years). As the ‘80s progressed I became more interested in fine art and moved to Bath to study painting.
Alan: Tell me a bit more about some of those art-related jobs.
Perry: While studying painting I was offered some work at a Stage scenery workshop & started painting huge backdrops for plays, big forest scenes for pantomimes, that kind of thing. Unfortunately this came to a halt when the workshops were redeveloped into a car park for Sainsburys. Then by chance, I met someone who was starting a business producing architectural illustrations for estate agents etc. I initially didn’t have any particularly good abilities at this, but like any learning process, continual repetition tunes your skills…a few years later I was (unsuccessfully) trying to earn a living as an illustrator and got a part time cleaning job in a school, which led to working as a school art technician.
Alan: Like you, I’ve worked around the underground press and music scenes for most of my life. Were music and festivals a major part of your life?
Perry: Growing up in Salisbury, Stonehenge was something that was just there and I occasionally visited as a child. The festival (which went on for weeks) was somewhere to pop up to for a while, I was into Crass and Here & Now – very different musically, but I’d liked the kind of ethos they had…there were good things and bad things about Stonehenge festival. Music has been a huge part of my life. I’d never have imagined that in my 60s that I’d still get excited about new bands. I’ve always preferred to see bands in small clubs and pubs rather than festivals.
Alan: Who are your cartoonist heroes? Explain why you like some of their characters and cartoons.
Perry: Crumb and Gilbert Shelton are favourites. I suppose, a bit like music they showed a more interesting alternative in publications. Also Charles Burns, like Crumb he’s a fantastic artist who creates quite strange dark stories. But really I’ve always been attracted to independent books and comics. There’s a great magazine called ‘Raw Vision’ that publishes outsider art, I probably prefer this kind of artwork by people working away at their own thing, more than actual comic books.
Alan: I’ve worked with Pete Loveday and Kate Evans and shared some of their cartoons in books and zines about the alternative festi scene and the new Travellers, the Convoy and more. Likewise, Gubby, Joe Public, David Stooke and others have contributed their pics. What images would you like to share with the magazines I work with? Particularly, International Times and Gonzo…
Perry: I’ve done artwork for ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST FESTIVAL (a West country festival) and FOREST OF IMAGINATION (an art/environment festival) as well as odd festival drawings.
Alan: You’ve said about your new exhibition in Bath at Victoria Art Gallery, Bath:
“This exhibition brings together various
aspects of my work: the cartoons of Bath are inspired by underground comics and skills learnt as an architectural
illustrator. The more painterly watercolours are inspired by my love of nature and revisiting my earlier love of painting.”
Can folk get to see your exhibition artwork on-line and maybe even buy something?
Perry: I’ll probably be posting an on-line version of my exhibition…I’ve never been particularly good at sales, there’s only so much time, which I’d rather spend drawing, however, I will try to make more of an effort to do marketing/sales on-line. This is a fairly prestigious exhibition for me, my artwork is in the smaller free gallery, while the bigger paid exhibition running at the same time is of cartoons by Thomas Rowlandson (and John Nixon), who were caricaturing life in Bath 200 years ago, so I’m quite honoured to be the support act for this.
Perry: For a few years before social media started I’d been drawing lots of cartoon/design images and posted about 2,000 of them on Pinterest (it’s a good way for me to see and sort my artwork) and then I sort of forgot about them while my artwork went in another direction. About a year ago I got a message from this American guy saying, ‘Is this your artwork?’ with a link to a guy modelling a t-shirt with one of these drawings. I investigated it a bit and found that there is huge underground business in streetwear clothes and somehow someone had found and used my drawings on Pinterest and it had escalated with 100s of designs by different people using my images all across the USA. I posted about it on Facebook, because I thought it an interesting story and it created a lot of moral outrage on my behalf – with everyone saying I should sue. I didn’t sue, partly because it just seemed so complicated with so many people involved, but also because I felt it’s better to see the images being used than not. I could’ve made Pinterest private, but every artist wants to be seen and who doesn’t want cult status!
Alan: You’ve recently undertaken a cartoon with, and for Tom Vague, for his ‘Vague’ zine. I think
that you are happy to share that with me for publication too.
Perry: Yes, that’s fine.
Alan: Here are samples from the new Vague cartoon.
Alan: What of the future? Do you have regular publications which publish your work?
Perry: To carry on! I tend to divide my time with either cartoon drawing or painting, so will carry on (hopefully) improving with them. I’d like to do an epic Vague cartoon, depicting Tom’s reworking of ‘Apocalypse Now’. I’ve got a title ‘Apocalypse Vague’ maybe for the 50th anniversary…
Alan: Here’s the first page of the ‘Brief History of Vague’ which you created for Tom in the past.
Alan: That’s been fun to find out a bit more about your work, Perry. Where is the best place for folk to see more of your work in the future and get in touch with you?
Perry: Thanks Alan, I’m on social media as:
Instagram: @uhperry
Twitter/X: @uhperry
Bluesky: @uhperry.bsky.social
Facebook: Perry Harris