The satirical surrealism of British artist Alex Gamsu Jenkins has appeared in Vice, Juxtapoz, HUSTLER and The New York Times. Join us in studio for a trip inside his subversive art and comic strips.
HUSTLER: What was the first thing to make you really laugh?
ALEX GAMSU JENKINS: There was a series that I first saw in 2007, so I was about 18, but it really appealed to me. It was called The Mighty Boosh on BBC Three. But it stood out more than any other series had for me, and it was a surreal, silly sort of television program.
Was that the first show to impact your artistic sensibility as well?
I also really remember the macro zooms from Ren & Stimpy, which were hand-painted, detailed and a bit gross. I liked violent things, like most young boys would, things like Dragon Ball Z or the first two Terminator films. I have a vivid memory of seeing a Philip Guston painting in the Tate at some point as a kid, so every time I see his cartoonish characters with their big, cycloptic eye, it feels familiar.
Would you say that Guston is your biggest influence?
