Conversation with Scott Coubrough (NoImNormal) - Dynamic stills

A bunch of pencils and markers and a few magazines are the main tools of Scott for creating his powerful compositions - and lots and lots of movies which inspire him to a great extent. His persistent and thorough watching of films cause him to cross or rather reshape boundaries between these different fields of art. Residing in Kilmarnock near Glasgow, Scott has a fresh look at art and creativity going on in Scotland, especially in these two towns.

custos It would be really interesting to hear you about your relation to drawing.

NoImNormal I was always drawing. When I was younger I’d draw a lot from magazines and books, and create characters and things, which is really what most people do. I got into painting at secondary school where I used to paint a lot of still life pictures, but I got bored of that after a while. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever sit in front of a decaying sunflower again. I didn’t really develop a style I felt confident about until a few years later when I bought some good pens and found that it felt much more natural than paint. Brushing is too delicate. I don’t even know how I will be able to go back to painting now, even though it is something I really want to improve on. I do use oil pastels occasionally, and I might try them a little more in the future.

custos How have you developed the unique way you create your works, like a colour analysis of the surface?

NoImNormal So I began drawing portraits and people using pens. The pen-and-collage style that I work in now happened by accident. While I was making the drawing Donny + Ali, which is sourced from the movie Bully, I was making a lot of mistakes colouring one of the faces. And you cant really alter mistakes in pen very easily. I cast the drawing aside for a month or two, and it’s a miracle I didn’t throw it away. I eventually got the idea to cover up the mistakes with magazine clippings and found that I enjoyed the look of the pen and the collage together, so I started gluing paper to other areas of the surface. That drawing Donny + Ali is kind of special to me now. I think it changed the way I draw in a big way. And… it was actually the first piece I sold at a proper art exhibition, so somebody wanted it.

custos What is your working process like?

NoImNormal I think that all the ready-made textures and patterns you can take from used magazines give the drawings a really pretty and intricate look, but I still try to maintain a relatively expressive aesthetic at the same time – the way I use collage can be quite random and un-contrived at times. I think you can be both expressive and controlled. A lot of the figurative artists I like the most are both. Now when I make drawings I begin with the intention of doing a pen layer and then a collage layer, and then tidying it up with more pen. My use of colour is mostly instinctual. Sometimes when I am almost finished a picture I decide that it needs to contain more of one particular colour, and go over swathes of the surface in that colour before I decide it is over.

custos Movies are central to your art: many times you are inspired by them and re-create film stills.

NoImNormal Yes, movies are my favourite thing. I’m obsessive about them. Since I watch so many it probably makes sense that I use them in my art. Ridiculously, I even dream about watching films, being in films, and going to the cinema. I always look quite carefully at films and have a good memory of how shots look, so when I am thinking of ideas for art something from a film tends to spring to mind. I think cinema is the best place to find really interesting images. I want my art to be dramatic and cinematic and have some kind of hint of movement and dynamism. It’s interesting to pause a film and really look hard at what you can see, how characters look at each other, where they are standing or sitting, everything that is going on in that one moment of the narrative. You can see how much is condensed in that one image and also extrapolate on it in your own mind. That’s really what it means to be obsessive about films, because I think of watching films as being about finding people and stories you relate to and, for me personally, it’s a way to engage in things that I don’t get to experience in life. In pausing a movie you add another dimension to the way that you can take what is happening and make it your own, since all movement and continuity is halted – you can make what you want of the image. In a way you could say that that is completely against what film is, because it is all about movement and narrative. But that is the way I experience movies. I was working for a while on a project called ‘Flickers’, which was basically taking the simple composition of the two figures seen in Donny + Ali, and finding analogous images from different films that I could then recreate. I wanted to have one from each decade, and I did manage to go from the 1950s to the 2010s. It wasn’t always easy to get an image I felt really fitted, but I just kept the idea in my mind whenever I watched films, and made sure to take note when I found something that could look right. It was a cool project, and it encouraged me to watch more films from earlier decades. I do like many different types of films, but I mostly watch more modern stuff. I like directors such as Gregg Araki, David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, and Harmony Korine, and also Nicholas Ray.

custos Do you work both from life and from film stills? And are there further inspiring impacts?

NoImNormal I work from life when I can besides working from photos and film stills. Sometimes I draw from memory or from looking at other artists – I don’t copy anything exactly, but I sometimes feel that an artist has created something I can use in my own way. There are a few artists whose styles I feel influenced by. I am very into Egon Schiele at the moment. His portraits are incredibly beautiful and kind of grotesque at the same time. And he is a good example of someone who is expressive, yet very controlled. A lot of his stuff is sort of decorative but there is also a huge amount of feeling there. I like Aya Takano, the Japanese artist. She is similar to Schiele in that she often focuses on adolescent figures in a sort of ambiguous way. They are attractive and cute, but also frightening. Her work is also really fun rather than being completely serious. My other favourite contemporary artist is Rogelio Manzo His work is really stunning. I reblog a lot of my favourite art on my tumblr, so you can see everything that inspires me on there.

custos Do you study at an art institution or create on your own, by yourself? What your daily life looks like?

NoImNormal I didn’t study art. When I left school I didn’t feel that passionate about it - it wasn’t my top priority as much as it is now. I studied literature though. I read a lot. So my art is my own doing. Of course. I live in Kilmarnock, which is near Glasgow. Glasgow is ok for art, there are a few nice galleries, but most of the best exhibitions go to Edinburgh. I visit some, but it’s quite a long journey, so it’s not always possible. In Kilmarnock there is some creativity going on. I work in a library which is in a building with an art gallery and museum, and some of the events and exhibitions are pretty cool. Right now there is an exhibition of the Kilmarnock-born artist Robert Colquhoun, who I knew nothing about. But he’s actually very good.

custos How did you choose your nicknames, NoImNormal and Buddha-did-it?

NoImNormal I have been using Buddha Did It as an alias since I was about 17. It comes from a line in a novel called The Cone Gatherers by Robin Jenkins. The story is about a hunchback named Calum and his brother Neil who live in Scotland during the Second World War. It is a strange book which we read for English class. It is a good story, but sort of unintentionally funny as it is not very subtle. That sounds like criticism, but it’s not. The line ‘Buddha did it’ is spoken by a young boy whose mother is a landowner and is in a position of power over the other characters in the novel. She argues with her son about his good nature, his compassion, and his willingness to help those less fortunate than he is. She says that it is not practical to go through life being that way. And he replies, ‘Buddha did it’. I just like the way the phrase sounds. I don’t really use NoImNormal as a username as much but it comes from a movie called River’s Edge. Dennis Hopper, a sexually deranged hermit, is asked if he is crazy and replies ‘No I’m normal’, which made me laugh. Because his character is so monumentally abnormal… but who isn’t?

custos The gallery where you've belonged to has closed recently, although hopefully only temporarily.

NoImNormal Yes, A.Gallery closed at the end of last year as they were having problems with their building. The last I heard is that they are looking for a new venue but I’m not sure. I would love to be involved with them if they do return. I’ve seen a lot of good art there and the owner is really enthusiastic and helpful. The exhibitions they held were often quite unusual as everything was quite heavily driven by the personal tastes of the creative director, who championed a lot of unknown or young artists in Scotland. She showed a lot of photography and figurative stuff, as well as some digital art. There was a good mix. Recently I've joined Artpistol, an online/pop-up art gallery based in Glasgow thus that's a new place where I can show art.