Rugman - About

I am a London-based artist/designer.

I have a passion to create pieces of visual quality for people to enjoy… to be totally honest, I do what I love because I love it. Not because I have to do it, nor am forced to do it, but because I am passionate about doing what I do.

I have always had a great love of art from an early age. This was helped along by a neighbour who was an artist and would encourage me to draw. The groundbreaking moment though was to arrive in the shape of a skateboard – my older brother’s Steve Caballero Powell Peralta board to be precise. From that very moment things became clearer for me as an artist and I knew what I wanted to do.

This whole period for me in the mid to late 80’s was all about Skate, Punk music and drawing all the time. Graphics like the Vision Psycho Stick were so inspiring – in fact anything by Vision or Santa Cruz made me feel very happy. My brother and I even started a little side-line with hand-crafted stencils, fabric paint and blank T-shirts….. home-made copies of Thrasher and Stussy logo t-shirts went down well with our friends and funded our early love of beer.

The fact that I was never any good at skating never stopped me from enjoying the Skate culture and what it stood for. It still has a massive influence on my work and life today… I still listen to Sonic Youth while sketching out what my brain has to offer and have the odd skate session when no one is looking.

The other great love of Rugman is comics and popular culture of the American kind. The obvious icons from the art world of POP are Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Robert Rauchenberg, Claes Oldenberg and I love the nudes by Mel Ramose. My comic collection includes many pieces but 2000 AD is very prominent along with any comic done by VERTIGO comics and the odd Gore Shriek.

After this Skate, POP and Comic influenced adolescence, I decided to study art at Glasgow where I did a foundation in art focusing on Graphic Design. I then packed my bags and rolled on down to the big bright lights of London, where I studied for a BA in Textiles at Chelsea Art College. I emerged from this degree hungry for experience and within a week of graduating I found myself in New York working for a London-based textile house selling ideas to the likes of Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. Two years of fortnightly trips over the Atlantic took its toll and I decided to be in London full-time, where I designed for a small independent t-shirt label called RUDE London.

I still work in the apparel business today, mainly doing freelance illustration/graphics for t-shirts. So, here I am, in my thirties, still designing t-shirts, which in turn is still funding my love of beer.

Rugman the Artist mainly paints from his studio in Hackney and has been known to on occasion stencil or paste the streets of East London where his art came to fruition. Along with my commercial art career I have always maintained my own paint studio where I have been painting for the last 7 years. This work has been my passion and through the years I have been lucky enough to exhibit my work around the world… including in Barcelona, Berlin, California, Dublin, and most notably in London at Cans Festival and Cans Fest 2 alongside some of the leading Urban and Graffiti artists of our time.

My studio keeps me sane and allows me to experiment and pursue many different techniques and keeps my mind artistically active. This in turn helps my commercial work - it keeps both outlets in touch and free flowing.

I will always paint but my work is becoming more and more computer-influenced with my illustration work being at the forefront of the way I work today.

I have been very lucky through my creative career and have met some amazingly talented and inspiring people along the way but I still have many dreams to fulfill. If I can make one person smile or look that little bit longer when looking at a piece by Rugman then I have done my job and I am very happy…

Oh… I almost forgot if you’ve read this far you’ll be looking for an explanation of the name RUGMAN. Well it’s very simple… I am one hairy bastard…

So in short… Birth. Glasgow. Drawing. Comics. Skateboarding. First tattoo. Punk rock. Hip-hop. Lovely Woman. College. London. Parties. Beer. New York. London. New York. London. New York (Yeah)… Computer arts. Beer. Lovely Woman. Paint. USA road trip 10,000 miles 2 months. Second tattoo. Paint. Shit job. Good job. Woman of my dreams. Beer. Too many parties… Paint. More Tattoos. Daughter. Paint. Happy…