Editors Preface

Back in November ’23 when I started my own personal journey as an emerging artist I was constantly searching for places to display my framed prints (and still am today). Ideally it would be local and the gallery owner would open to learn about me and working beside me to promote and sell my artwork.

Its sounds simple, in reality it is incredibly hard work. The type of art I create is seen by many as a novelty, not mainstream, after all when you create art digitally it doesn’t take skill or training and there are no techniques to master, its just press a few buttons and hey presto its done. In reality this is far from true. Yes there are apps that you can use to make digital images and yes you can now create art using AI but this is a totally different thing to creating Digital Mixed Media Concept Art.

A wise man once told me, “Its not the length of time it took to create the art, but the length of time it took to learn how to create it that needs to be considered”. My artwork tends to be either dark and moody or bright garish and bold. Each piece is made of 50+ individual layers that have been manually blended together to create a seamless image. Normally I blend items that should not be found in the same space, such as rusty mentl spikes to replace the backbone of a female model.

Anyway I digress, you can find out more about me and my artwork via my website and blog. Let’s continue the story: I was lucky enough to be pointed in the direction of a gallery based in Derbyshire, they expressed an interest in meeting me and seeing my work.

From the moment I met Carol and John at Leabrooks Arts Complex I knew no matter what came out of our meeting we would remain in contact. Seeing their reaction to one of my pieces of framed art when I unpacked it and talked them through the creative process was reward enough for me.

As a result of this meeting they hosted a solo exhibition for me and still display my work today. It is therefore a great pleasure to dedicate this whole magazine to some of the amazing artists they represent.

James Hurley
Editor & Artist