Video: Illustrator Matt Dixon guides us through his robotic world
A Nottingham illustrator has been producing ‘postcards from his imagination’ depicting his visions of a mysterious robot world.
In the heart of Beeston, on a residential street, freelance illustrator and concept artist Matt Dixon sits in his attic – a single beam of light illuminating his studio.
But this isn’t any ordinary attic, this isn’t an ordinary studio – this is a gateway to another world.
And a successful Kickstarter campaign has given his ‘viewers’ the key to a ‘deeper exploration of the world’.
Matt Dixon is the gatekeeper to this robotic Earth and guides Liam Hunt through his journey…
“Transmissions started in 2006 when I painted my first robot image, but at that point there was no idea that it would become a series; it was just a picture of a robot.
A couple of months later, I painted another robot and then another one and then I reached the point where I realised they were somehow inhabiting the same world.
From that point on, when the time came to paint a personal piece of work, it tended to take the form of a robot.
It has snowballed since then really, reaching the point where there was enough work to collate them into a book and that is when it really took off.
It had a name at that point, Transmissions, like the ideas for the robots themselves, the name sort of felt like it was beamed in.
There is no great concept behind the robots; I just sort of sit down when I’m in the mood and I get on with them, they just seem to happen, I don’t think about it too much.
So this idea just seemed to make sense.
The Kickstarter has been crazy; the initial goal was £2,500 but we currently have 276 backers who have pledged £13,686.
To be where I am now beyond the initial goal, only half way through the campaign…
It is quite personal work so the idea that there are that many people out there who enjoy the paintings and seem to connect with the robots – that feels really good.
I get as much pleasure from the way that people respond to the work as I do from creating it in the first place.
Transmissions 3 is a continuation really, each book feels like a deeper exploration of that world the robots seem to inhabit.
I don’t really have a broad view as to what that might be; each image tells me a little bit more about what’s going on in there.
So the further I explore, the more pictures I do, it seems the greater understanding I have of their world, so the people who have seen the first book and then the second and then the third hopefully will come on a similar journey with me.
Because there was no grand plan behind the series of robot images I really am discovering it piece by piece, each image is like a postcard back from my own imagination.
There’s a little bit more information in each one but where they are going, what their message is – if there is a message – I’m really not sure, but that is what makes it so appealing to me I think; that I can sit down and I don’t always know exactly what is going to pop out.
I’ve usually got a fairly strong idea of how the image is going to form but the details sometimes surprise me as well – there will be an extra idea that will just jump in there, each one is a surprise genuinely.
It is fascinating to see how people react to them, that really is what drives me along apart from the pleasure of creating them.
To go along to conventions, take the work out, have it on my table and have big canvases beside me, they seem to draw people in and they’ll often tell me how those images make them feel whether it be sad or happy.
That’s brilliant because quite often what the viewer experiences is very different to what I was experiencing and what I was thinking about while I was creating the artwork itself.
The robots’ world does seem to be our world; there are little tokens around which are familiar – security cameras, discarded mittens, there is all sorts of things like that.
The vegetation certainly seems to be Earth style vegetation so I have no sensation they’re on another planet.
But there is certainly a fantasy element to it as well, there is odd rock formations in some of the images, like Earth but whether it is Earth as we know it I really don’t know.
There is definitely more than one robot.
Each image is a different robot; there is kind of a family resemblance there as they often look quite similar.
There is a distinctive head shape which keeps appearing, so maybe all of them are made in the same factory or by the same entity, I’m not sure.
But beyond that they just seem to be interested in the world around them, they’re often just staring at a rock or looking in wonderment at a lost shoe, that kind of thing.
There is not too much of an arty impulse behind them, it really just is me having fun and trying to reveal a new aspect of this world – any message, I’d like to leave that to the people who look at the work.”
