The Style
Dylan Izaak’s distinctive approach to cityscape paintings have made a huge impact on art lovers and won him a place amongst an elite group of artists. They were all tasked with capturing the London 2012 Olympics. His characteristic view of wonky buildings and skylines in some of the most recognisable locations around the world, offers a distinctive contemporary take on urban life.
Although Dylan was born in Rugby. He spent most of childhood moving between the UK and Australia. After Rugby the Izaak’s moved to Coventry. Then to Australia. Then back to the UK and Stratford-upon-Avon, before heading back over to Oz and then back to Stratford again.
Always interested in art, Izaak was keen for his style not to be influenced by study and is self-taught.
“I didn’t even get my GCSE art. I did the work but didn’t bother handing it in. I always thought if I went on to study it, other people would influence me. “I was avidly thinking, ‘I want one style. I don’t want to be influenced by anything. I’ll do it myself.’”
Inspiration
When he left school, Dylan chased summer around the world. Heading to Australia for their summer and then coming back to Britain for ours. In Australia he earnt a living as a street artist. Here he made conservative, architectural-style paintings and sketches of Sydney Opera House. The harbour bridge and other city scenes. He’d then make copies of the pictures to sell, in addition to the originals.
“When they sold out, I went back to the printers and got as much printed as I could afford. I would carry as much as I could back and forth. By the end of it, I worked out I had sold 115,000 originals and prints.”
After doing this for 8 or 9 years he began to tire of the tedium of churning out accurate paintings which he felt lacked expression. So he started painting wonky buildings on the side, and returned to the UK with the idea of opening a gallery.
However limited funds meant taking the unconventional route of opening the gallery on a narrow boat. Here, Dylan displayed a variety of work including the Long People and Wonky Buildings. After a year of working hard on his collection he began to start selling his work through other galleries. This added exposure created a higher demand for his work. So he sold The Barge Gallery and focused on creating his labour-intensive originals.
Exhibitions
In 2012 he became one of the Official BT Olympic Artists. Tasked with creating a visual record of the London 2012 Olympic Games. This artwork was then exhibited at various places including the top of the BT Tower, top floor of the Gherkin and various London galleries.
Now living in Stratford-upon-Avon with his wife and two children, Izaak’s unconventional approach to things doesn’t stop at wonky buildings and floating galleries. When faced with a creative blank he goes to see Wendy and Gloria, the pigs who live next to his studio.
“The things I like most in life are beer. Cars. Pigs and people, and now that I have children I quite like those as well”.
Dylan paints on aluminium. It creates a sharp contrast between glossy paint and metal. The process involves stencilling on the metal canvas first, then adding an undercoat. Re-drawing the outline and adding odd shapes to bring out a buildings character. He then paints more coats to cover up his initial outlines and finally adds the black lines to define the colour blocks.
Dylan’s high impact paintings on brushed aluminium and hand finished limited edition prints are now sold and collected across the world.
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