Man and the Machine-an Interview with Pioneering Illustrator and Digital Artist Patrick Morgan

To say that Patrick is one of the most successful illustrators of today would be an understatement. Still, how do you define the work of a multidimensional creator that took his design art to territories unexplored? A true modern-day homo Universalis, he has created a personal visual universe while creatively incorporating top-notch technology and innovation into the process. Pioneering digital innovation in his field, Morgan’s work opens up new opportunities for disruption and discussion on man and the machine. Mixing art and science, his projects are a combination of XR, AI, VR, and old school artistic craftsmanship. His clients? Tom Ford, YSL, LVMH, Christian Dior, Fendi, Schiaparelli, you name it, it’s there.

Like every true artistic soul, Morgan is also an educator. Indeed, he has been fusing relationships between industry and universities working with the RCA and Wallpaper* magazine, while giving a series of lectures at Tate Modern about future learning and critical thinking. Always pushing boundaries, he became the founder and director of the Fida Fashion Awards, the first global online awards to promote fashion illustration and drawing around the world, supported and partnered by some of the best brands and people in the fashion industry. Most recently, Fida presented the new Digital Innovation Fashion Awards in collaboration with Condé Nast and Wired Magazine and ‘The Fashion Illustration Bible’, a book-showcase of the best illustrators around. The StyleTitle caught up with him to discuss creativity, future trends, and his ‘lifting creativity as we rise” mantra.

You have experimented with fusing traditional design with future trends. How do you envision the future of design?

Fusing, is a word I have started to use frequently, as I believe that it is imperative for artists, craftspeople, and designers to work much more, hand in hand with machines and technology. As technology becomes more available and affordable to a non-industrial system, creatives will be able to get much closer to competing on a smaller scale with industry. Future trends are driven by art, culture, music, and life and true artists will always be immersed in tradition, so disguising their process through more technological workflows will become much more apparent. Ever since Duchamp introduced the Read-made and Jeff Koons incorporated an industrialized system to his final work, embedding a restyle or appropriated piece from the past.

You define yourself as an ‘educator’. How important is the education process for you?

Education is a major part of shared knowledge and as a creative educated through art school, I feel the need to pass on wisdom and information. This is the only way to progress and make ideas better and more progressive.

Is modern design a case of art versus the machine?

Modern design will either be a collaboration or reaction against the Machine. The creative will either choose to work alongside the technology or they will choose to embed it into their daily work. Artists and creatives have always looked for the new. This is what makes things exciting and different, creating pastiches of the past won’t inspire us to provoke new thoughts and open diverse conversations.

Do you feel that digital is the way fashion should go in a post corona era?

No, Digital and fashion, like art will always be in flux. Artists like Jonathan Anderson is reacting to digital and using and promoting a much more traditional way of working, where Iris Van Herpen is embracing the future, pushing the envelope of what the machine or technology can do to enhance her final design.

Tell us about your current book project-and your future ones.

I am currently working on a few books, firstly a book Celebrating Fida, a platform I have created for fashion artists and illustrators to celebrate this amazing field of talent. Fida will be a year old and we have worked with Peter Dundas, running a competition reflecting on his past works and Celine Dion on imagining her future through the lens of fashion illustration. The second book will be for a show I am creating with an ex-student of mine, looking as tastemakers of the past and art collecting of today. Opening the question of what art brings to your personal wellbeing and how we desire to be surrounded by beautiful things or art that makes us feel happier or more powerful

More of Patrick Morgan’s work can be found here

Originally published at https://thestyletitle.com on October 15, 2020.