Sean Morris is a guy who isn’t afraid to turn over a few stones, looking under the skin of our metropolistic culture for gems of uniqueness. Not all of these gems are beautiful in the traditional sense, however the scenarios and characters that his work portrays hold their own attraction – you know, like that incident you saw on the way to work. You wanted to look away, but couldn’t, so you kept looking, torn between curiosity and the desire to avert your eyes, but settling on “wow”.

It is often those feelings that his work evokes, that Sean Morris has garnered a whole swath of fans all throughout the world. It’s not only that, though – his work also carries in it elements, be they pop sensibilities, or iconography, that everyone can relate to.  Low brow in so many senses of the word, he pulls no punches – indeed, the Perth artist is at times highly characteristic of a West Australian, reflecting in his words, and work, a relaxed, no worries, whatever, ever so slightly (okay, more than slightly) piss taking attitude.

It’s for all those reasons, and many more, that we love the work of Sean Morris. When we had a chance to talk to him after his recent return from an international sojourn, we just had to dig a little deeper.

So, we hear you’ve been travelling lately – what did you get up to, and what crazy shit did you see in the past few weeks that you loved?

Yeah I just got back home … I had my solo show in London, then spent a few weeks in the Greek Islands and Croatia. Greek beaches were pretty amazing for the parade of mega-tanned flesh and fluoro speedos.

Other good memories include hanging out on an active volcano, and getting caught in the middle of a Gypsy fist-fight.

We really loved all the stuff we saw around the show/zine launch that you just did, Killer Abs Will Kill You – obviously this was a major focus for you over the last few months – can you tell us a bit about the show and how it all went?

Pretty rad. The guys at Beach London are total heroes, doing it for the love. It was a bit different doing a print-focused show after painting for so long, but things went pretty smoothly, no major disasters. A lot of good people came down to the opening, everyone pretended to like my weird zine, and we played beer pong. Pretty good result!  

The zine is for sale up on the Beach site, (http://www.beachlondon.co.uk/) or folks in Australia can probably grab one directly from me. There’s a whole bunch of drawings inside which aren’t about clean living, and a free poster that I drew of Hulk Hogan and seven mean girls hanging out at the beach. 

A few months ago you did an interview with the Opening Hours and said that “Humanity is a giant trash pile and I’m slowly digging my way towards the centre of it.” – what is it about the digging that you most enjoy? What do you think you’ll find when you get closer to the centre, and how do you think that will be reflected in your art?

It’s the little things you find along the way. The gold teeth and beer-hats and scorpion neck tattoos. I don’t think I’ll ever get to the centre though, it’s a pretty big pile.

Tell us a bit about your love of illustration as a style, and what it is about line work that you think gives you the freedom to express yourself so fluidly?

I’ve been gravitating more towards non-illustrative art for a little while, but I still find line-based work the best way to express the ideas I have. I love how the smallest line variation can make or break an image, or how it can mean the difference between something being beautiful or gross. Or Super Gross.

Are you still based in Perth these days? What is it about the city that you love, and what creative avenues does it contribute?

Yeah I’m back home for a while. I hate and love the isolation in Perth – it’s frustrating, but if you’re doing something creative it can drive you pretty hard. The art scene is more disjointed than it should be in a small city, but I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by a strong unit of people who work hard and make world class stuff, so for now I’m pretty happy making art here.

There’s something really cool, but, we have to admit, slightly disturbing in the characters you illustrate – where do they spring from, and what are the cool kinds of ideas that give them their looks?

I think my drawing style has just devolved over time, from the more realistic figures I was drawing when I started out … now everyone’s kinda wonky and chubby, but I don’t really think of them as ugly. I just like drawing attention to the little physical imperfections that absolutely everyone has – I actually think those ‘faults’ are charming.

I don’t really like drawing clothing that much, so that’s why all the people I draw tend to end up sporting denim cut-offs or one-piece lycra bodysuits.

The themes in your work also cross over into witty little exposes on crazy human behaviour, and some scenes remind us heavily of schlock 50s and 60s movies – and also has that “trailer park” feeling to it, what is it about the whole lowest common denominator that fascinates you?

Yeah I identify with the whole schlock, and exploitation film aesthetic a fair bit … entertainment that hasn’t been affected by the dread of offending people. I’m not held down by any high art ideals and i know not everyone is gonna like what i do, so I’m just trying to have fun with it and make pictures of stuff that I think is rad – and trailer park culture is pretty rad. 

You do a bit of commercial illustration and such to pay the bills – how do you cope with the juxtaposition of this, and how the hell do you keep yourself from inserting crazy cheerleeders and such into that kind of thing?

It breaks my heart a little every time I can’t do that! The juxtaposition between doing straight and loose work was nice for a while, but I’ve pretty much reached the end of my patience for the commercial thing. There’s only so many times you can deal with being asked to do a shit drawing on purpose.

What have been some of the more interesting, strange, or memorable reactions you have had to your work in the past? Being fairly different in terms of content matter, have there ever been any comments that just made you think “you idiot”?

I liked when someone asked if they could get my drawing of a mutilated slutty mermaid tattooed on them. As far as haters, I mainly just get dumb comparisons to cartoons – expand your frame of reference, bro.

Any plans to head over the East side in the near future to give the people over here a taste of your work, and what are your plans over summer?

An East side solo is long overdue, I’ll book it in at some point! I’m enjoying using art to travel further afield at the moment though, so the next big project will probably be an L.A. show.

Gonna camp out at my new studio over summer, drink some red cordial and try to make some big ol’ paintings!

Check out more amazing work from Sean Morris on his blog, here!