Sit back and checkout this interview with Brighton local & global wall destroyer Megamunden aka Ollie Munden.
UKSA: Hey Mega, we’ve seen your involvement in some pretty super scale projects – what are some of the biggest pieces you’ve worked on?
MM: I suppose what your meaning by biggest. With regard to mural / live painting type work I would say that my mural whilst at McFaul Studio for Tiger Beer up in Glasgow was the largest single wall I’ve done… but more recently for ilovedust I was heavily involved in painting the entire inside of a new burger restaurant called Meat Liquor up in London.
But jobs such as Toshiba whilst at McFaul Studio and a Nike job connected with March Madness for ilovedust were incredibly involved and long term projects… together both jobs covered animation, web content, illustration, design and art direction.
Perhaps one of the most intense single Illustrations I’ve done is a project for a small Knitwear firm based in Brighton, Lark Rising. In total I believe it may have taken me nearly 1 month to draw this single illustration. It went through many changes and it really was a labor of love. View the whole thing here.
UKSA: Any particular street artists that influence what you do?
MM: I really love the work of Broken Fingaz. I like how they chop up walls into sections to reveal details or other scenarios within the piece. It’s also super bold work with bright colours and awesome comic influenced typography so those guys are definitely one influence.
I do love the large scale animals that Roa does, I’ve seen a few in london that caught my eye…. also a on a recent trip to NYC the stuff that DFace had done out there was really nice.
I’ve always liked Dave Kinsey, that goes way back I love his characters.
I really like what Blu has done, with working with the way murals are filmed… doing something new with it. That is something that really interests me. So far I haven’t done too much in the way of pushing how a live piece if filmed… the videos I’ve been involved in opt for more of a nicely shot and cleanly edited approach but I think it’d be interesting to one try something different with that at some point.
Mike giant is definitely another influence when it comes to live stuff… I admire that he can just bust out such tight piece of work… I love the black and white work or limited palettes… and he loves a skull and snake combo as do I at times.
With this recent collaboration mural I did with good friend Shan Jiang we did try some new things in how we paint out a previous mural and messing about a bit with the stop motion… but not to the degree Blu has done.
Volvoartsession.com
UKSA: What is it about painting on walls that you love?
MM: I always say that murals are one of the most fun type of projects I get involved with. It allows me to get out of the studio, more recently travel the world, meet new people, and really get my hands dirty and create something original… it’s also a huge adrenalin rush doing something live and large often in front of people or even a crowd… it adds that pressure and gives you a buzz.
I also really enjoy the reception you get from people and how these murals make them happy. I remember in Glasgow when we did the Tiger Beer mural there was an office on the other side of the river from where we were working and towards the end of the week when we were finishing a lady from the office came over and said how much fun it was for them to watch us each day and that they had asked their followers on Facebook to try and guess what we were painting thorough out the week… it was really nice to know we’d given those guys something fun to watch that week. And there are many stories like that associated with murals I’ve worked on.
Often doing stuff from the studio comes in and goes out the door without even meeting your client and although that can be super fiun and rewarding too… I just think with murals every single one gives you that amazing buzz and that’s a really positive thing I get out of doing them.
I like how you can get a bit loose with things too… throw paint at a wall and see what happens… more recently I’ve started experimenting with spray paint for the first time… nothing technical but some simple spray paint effects have given a nice new angle to a few things I’ve worked on and I want to continue experimenting with that.
UKSA: Are street/live art & murals a large part of the commissions that come in for you/ILD?
MM: I think they are increasing, I wouldn’t say a large part… but who knows in the future perhaps they will become so. In my work I really like a balance, I’m not hoping that mural, installation work would take over as I’d miss doing print jobs, or book illustrations or work for clothing or whatever it may be… I love that variety. But as I’ve said above live work is great fun, it takes you places and you see new things and meet so many new faces… so I do hope I continue to be able to work on such projects.
UKSA: What’s coming up for Mega Munden?
MM: A bunch of stuff… to name a few things I’m really excited about.
- I’ve just finished a T-shirt for howies
- I’m soon to begin working on a book of tattoo illustrations that will come out next year and should hopefully be stocked globally.
- a few bits of branding work are going on at MEGA HQ at the moment so which is a bit different for me, makes a nice change.
- I did some work for Nike Snowboarding a month or so ago and the results of that will be released later this year which I’m really excited about.
- and lastly I’m currently in talks regarding a project that might involve me wrapping an entire plane in graphics… so fingers crossed for that.
Cheers guys.
MEGAMUNDEN
megamunden.com
ilovedust.com
@olliemunden