Clash of popculture Titans

James Gilleard reveals how games inspire him

When it opened in Los Angeles in 2004, Gallery 1988 made waves for branding itself ‘the first pop-culture focused art gallery in the world’. Now a new exhibition featuring work by artists Alexander Wells and James Gilleard focuses on our favourite medium. We’re chatting with Gilleard, whose past clients have included Disney, BMW, and the BBC, about his featured work.

Gilleard says he and Wells were approached by Gallery 1988 about doing the collaborative exhibition a year ago, adding, “We decided on the theme very quickly as we are both fans of videogames.”

He says he enjoyed the freedom that the exhibition offered him as it was an opportunity to create whatever he wanted without having to adhere to client feedback, elaborating, “Some images were quite straightforward, such as the Trico images or Shadow Of The Colossus (free this issue), as they are very iconic and simple, but No Man’s Sky proved more difficult as it is such a vast game.” Because of that, he made four artworks inspired by it instead of just one.

OVER THE MOON

The joint exhibition ran throughout the second half of January, though Gilleard was not able to see the prints in person owing to starting a new job. The series of images is inspired by an eclectic mix of things, from impressionism to glitch art and vaporwave, plus the work of science fiction artists such as John Harris, Roger Dean, and Chris Foss.

Gilleard adds, “I’ve noticed that I seem to go through three-year phases where I might try something new and then work in that style for three years, then get bored and want to try something else, which is fine. It’s great to think of my style as just a WIP that is always developing in some way.” Well, we like this work!

You can follow Gilleard’s work at his website, jamesgilleard.com.

His favourite part of creating is “when you kind of forget about the outside world.”

Gilleard says that games should be considered art in the same way film is.