Interview: Benji Spence

(January 2021)
I really like the rough, scissor-cut quality to Benji's lines, and the loudness of his colours – it's no surprise that, along with digital techniques, he also incorporates screenprinting and Riso into his work. You can see more of his stuff here.

What have you enjoyed working on lately?
There's a project that I was working on a couple of months ago that I've just recently seen come to fruition. I did a set of posters promoting an urban agriculture art project in Shieldfield, an area of Newcastle.

The project involved the local community growing wheat together, threshing it, and then making bread with it as a way of symbolically recognising the value of the land and speaking out against the area's gentrification. It was a wonderful thing to be a part of, and despite everything being disrupted by the pandemic, my posters are now up and I got to take part in a socially distanced bread making workshop. Amazing.

If you could have a magical power, what would it be?
My power would be to have the ability to grant wishes like a genie. That way I could help out all the people I liked; and if I didn't like people, I could grant their wishes with ironic twists, monkey's paw style.

I'm all about work that's bold, colourful and in your face. I make my illustrations 90% on the computer, 10% with a good old ink and brush. Pretty much everything I make uses just three different colour layers overlayed on top of one another, I find this helps me limit my colour scheme and makes for some slightly unexpected colour choices.

My work is a bit wacky and playful, but I enjoy bringing that sense of fun to important or serious subject matter.