Queen
A3 (29.7 x 42 cm) Mixed Media on Canvas
Original Available
MONTE BAUNK
Every piece is drawn line by line. Some of them have a message in there, put in for one person to find.
I draw every line by hand.
Then I finish it the same way.
I have OCD. Washing brushes all day never worked for me, so I draw on a screen instead. Every line goes down by hand, and a big piece can take weeks.
Then it gets printed on canvas and I work into it by hand. Some paint, some oil pastel, marker where it needs it. A light pass on most of them and a heavier one on a few. That last stage is what makes each piece its own.
THE NAME
There is more in it
than you see at first.
Every piece is drawn line by line. I have been doing this for years and I am quick at it now, but a big one still takes weeks.
Stay with it and more of it comes forward. Arguments. Old jokes. Things I was thinking about that week. Sometimes a message someone asked me to put in there for one person to find.
Each one is a map of my head on the day I made it.
Mountebank /ˈmaʊntɪbaŋk/ · noun · 1570s
A showman who sold medicine off a bench. Great patter. Nobody went home with what they expected.
Shuffle the ten letters and you get Monte Baunk. I can draw. I took the showmanship.
Most art gives you one thing to look at. Mine gives you a hundred, with jokes hidden in them. His medicine did the thinking for you. Mine makes you do it.
ORIGINALS, PRINTS AND MULTIPLES
THE WORK
Queen
A3 (29.7 x 42 cm) Mixed Media on Canvas
Original Available
THE PROCESS
HOW IT'S MADE
-
01
DRAW
ProCreate on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. Every line goes down by hand. Some pieces take an hour. Some take weeks.
-
02
PRINT
Silvertone International print it on Rembrandt canvas or archival paper with Epson pigment inks. Acid free. Made to outlast me.
-
03
FINISH
Then I work back into the print by hand with Posca, Mont Marte, ink and paint. Some pieces need very little. Others take a while. Either way it happens once, on that canvas, and that is the piece.
RECEIPTS
WHAT I'VE DONE
AFRICA'S FIRST NFT AUCTION
A framed First Series collection sold for R35 000 at the first NFT art auction held in Africa, hosted by Momint.
DIGITAL ART WINNER, AGAC 2023
Winner of the Digital Art category at the ARTi Gallery Art Competition in 2023.
FIRST SOLO SHOW
August 2023 at The Gallery Art Bar in Rosebank. My first solo show, and the room was full.
SOMETHING FOR YOUR WALL
Most of my work ends up somewhere people stand in front of it. Cafes, shops, dispensaries, offices, front rooms. If you have a wall, I will make something for it at the size the wall actually is.
TELL ME ABOUT THE SPACE