Nick Sheehy aka Showchicken

"The Sitting"

"The Woodcutter"

"The Damage"

"Masque of the Red Death"

cover art for the first issue of Tiny Pencil magazine

I posted Nick Sheehy's work almost two years ago (Sept. 2011) and he's been busy since then. While I enjoy pretty much everything he does just recently this series featuring a peculiar double skull character has resulted in some of my favorite pieces to date. Nick is an Australian born artist who studied sculpture in Tasmania, only to drop out of art altogether for a spell. Now living in southeast England his artistic interests were reignited by the low-brow and graffiti art movements. I rather like what I wrote last time so for once I'm going to simply paraphrase what I said before:

His unique surrealist narrative vision begs the viewer's mind for a rich tapestry of story and myth. It's as if the mythology, the gods, heroes and queer characters that inhabit his work always existed but we forgot about them. That is until Mr. Sheehy's came along with these illustrations to remind us of this elaborate and haunting heritage.

His work has a mythic dimension and an almost epic scope, even while the individual pieces themselves are small and delicately drawn. It's well worthwhile to take some time and look back through the evolution of his imagery. You'll see familiar motifs and characters recur not because he's stuck on old ideas but because that's how stories work. Each time something recurs it's as if a familiar thread is being brought back into an ever growing and elaborate tapestry of myth making.

Check it out on his Flickr page or on his website: www.showchicken.com