The next artist in our interview series creates beautiful, mesmerizing wrestling portraits and T-shirt designs. After you read insight from Alex Mahoney, please take a look at the first wrestling artist two interviews (here & here) as well, as now that we are on number three, we are really start to see the range of aesthetic and purpose in wrestling fan art . . .
Spectacle of Excess: Why is wrestling art? And why does it make such a good subject for art?
Alex Mahoney: Wrestling is art in that it’s a cultivated, studied, and constantly evolving expression of a story. That’s horrifically corny, and I don’t mean it in the same way that Ricochet means it when he talks about the “WRESTLING IS ART” shirts — I only mean to classify it in the same way I would, say, performance art. Which is arguably what it is anyway. Pro-wrestling nurtures story/character above all else, and I think art follows from there.
On Adam Cole II: “I’ve been known to draw the hell out of Adam Cole. Pretty sure the reference I used for this was a screenshot from ROH Final Battle 2014. I always enjoyed how he would revel in his over-acting, in the true spirit of pro-wrestling, making him a great subject. This drawing would be a few years old now, and it shows, but I think for my skill at the time, I did him justice. As handsome as he is, he does have a very interesting face that’s hard to draw the likeness from at times. Also, this was probably the first attempt at this kind of high-contrast, over-saturated colour palette that I’ve made use of about a billion times since.”
SofX: Is there a difference between fan art and “real” art?
AM: Sure, but I don’t think that devalues one or the other. I don’t have a particularly strong inclination to defend “real” art over fan art, or vice versa. Foundations for all forms of art begin in the same parts of our brain. If I choose to make art, “real” or “fan-”, of my own volition — that is, not getting paid to do it — it’s generally because I’ve been moved in one way or another and want to express that.
SofX: Who are your favorite artists in general? What artistic periods or movements resonate most with you?
AM: At the moment I’m into Aleksandra Waliszewska, John Larriva and Michael Zavros. Huge influences on my style are Egon Schiele and Jenny Saville. I draw a lot of inspiration from Baroque painters, even though their technique doesn’t necessarily reflect in my own art. I wish I could paint a sexy Jesus as good as Peter Paul Rubens, though.
On schminsuke schmakamura: “Everyone in the entire world unquestionably loves Shinsuke Nakamura, and I don’t think anyone else has embodied pro-wrestling showmanship like he has in the last 15-, 20-odd years. He’s just that good. As a subject for drawing, everything he does, every move he makes is with total finesse, every pose is incredibly dynamic, every action has a purpose, as it should. He’s also great to look at for pose sketching and anatomy studies, ‘cause he does just bend around in the weirdest ways and make for some super unique references. I have a tendency to exaggerate the sharpness of angles and use a lot of straight lines over curved, but I think that lends itself just fine to his character.”
SofX: What do you think of the idea that wrestling is a “spectacle of excess”?
AM: I think that’s as insightful a comment as any other I’ve seen. I also think it’s interesting that in Mythologies, all the way back in 1957, Barthes went on to predict present-day indy wrestling, and smarks, and American wrestlers hitting each other really hard for no reason:
“There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of Suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque. Of course, there exists a false wrestling, in which the participants unnecessarily go to great length to make a show of a fair fight; this is of no interest. True wrestling, wrongly called amateur wrestling, is performed in second-rate halls, where the public spontaneously attunes itself to the spectacular nature of the contest, like the audience at a suburban cinema. Then these same people wax indignant because wrestling is a stage-managed sport (which ought, by the way, to mitigate its ignominy). The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so; it abandons itself to the primary virtue of the spectacle, which is to abolish all motives and all consequences: what matters is not what it thinks but what it sees.”
Absolutely worth the complete read.
On Joey Janela T-shirt Designs: “I’ve had the good fortune to work with Joey Janela a few times on shirt designs, and, for some reason, and probably to the dismay of everyone else who comes to me for work, the shirts I do for him just come out… better. I don’t know what it is or why, but every time I sit down with the intent to do up a shirt for Joey, it just comes out looking like the coolest thing. I chalk it up partially to the kind of 80s retrowave/Hotline Miami thing he has going on character-wise and the range that presents to me, but also, I think it’s just a bit of good luck sometimes. This one was based on a sketch I did years prior when I first caught wind of what Joey was doing, and there was definitely a process to get it to this stage, but to this day it’s one of the few designs I’m still overall pretty happy with.”
SoX: You know it’s fake, right? 😉
AM: I should hope so! If it’s not the “it’s not FAKE, it’s SCRIPTED,” discussion, it’s the “I was in a wrestling match and fell over and busted my shit and now I’m bleeding a bit, and you’re telling me wrestling is FAKE?!” one we have now. Please, just let wrestling be fake, man. People know it’s fake and they still pay to come to shows and watch and party and lose their mind, so roll with it.
Follow Alex on Twitter (@redneck_kungfu) and take a look at a catalogue of some of her great designs here!
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