I am an artist that likes to work within a range of media – collage, animation, video, painting, drawing, ceramics and music. I use my art to express my feelings and emotions. Sometimes I feel if I’m not doing creative things there is no point living anymore – if I don’t get to express my feelings in my art in a creative way.
An interview with U.K. artist Eddie Callis
How old are you? 26
Where do you live? Temporarily back with my parents in Redruth, Cornwall where I also have a studio at Krowji
What inspires you in your painting? I just like seeing the colours and the shapes in landscapes. After working small with paintings that I then collage I like to get messy with big abstract paintings to see what shapes come out of that – sometimes faces come out. I like doing pictures of other people too because I’m really good at portraits. Sometimes I can take it too far with the details so my portraits end up being not very flattering but truthful.
What is the most important thing you would like people to know about you? I can see things that nobody else can and I also have loads of creative ideas and I don’t know where to put them so I have to keep doing art.
Is there anything you want to say about being autistic? It’s a special gift being autistic because I can do things that nobody else can think of although sometimes it’s challenging – I have a good ear for music too
Eddie share his art below.
The figure represents me looking out at the view in front of me with a seagull drifting off to another place in the picture I have also made an animation of this picture.
I needed a new picture to draw from onto a canvas so I went out and took some photos at Mylor Beach. I liked the look of the boat – the colour and the shapes and I wanted to try and start drawing objects in my landscape. I was influenced by Alfred Wallis.
I went out in the landscape sketching and decided to work on this image. This painting’s mainly about the shapes – I also used some collage from other paintings and so things are hidden in the landscape.
People say painting really portrays my autism – someone took a picture of me walking through a Cornish landscape with my head down feeling anxious.
I like to get messy with big abstract paintings to see what shapes come out of that. This piece was made into a pair of paintings and faces appeared while I was working on it
More of Eddie’s portraits can be seen in this book:
To see more of Eddie Callis’ art and portraits visit his website.
