FABRIC OF LIFE

We chat to Ian Berry who cuts up thousands of pieces of denim from jeans, jackets, and other denim clothing to create portraits, urbanscapes and other works of art

Your work is mind blowing and you don’t even realise it’s been created in denim. Why did you choose this medium? When I first started, I’d over emphasise that it was denim, using buttons, pockets and zips. Over time, I started using pieces to make it look more like a painting or a photograph, hiding that it’s made from denim jeans. My work isn’t about it being made in denim, other than it’s the material of our time, and I portray contemporary life – so what better material to use. In truth, it was a simple observation. I saw a pile of jeans piled up in my old bedroom, and noticed the shades next to one another. I hadn’t wanted to use my old jeans as they held memories for me. I had just done a collage in newspaper of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and thought, I could do that in denim too!

I started working with denim and started to think of my connection with it, and saw how other people connected with it. There’s something in the denim that allows people into my work.

Where did you get your creative genes (pun intended) and did you study art? My parents and family around me aren’t arty at all. They do say it skips generations. My maternal grandad was a draughtsman and designed engines, he was in a protected job during the war. My dad’s father had been a master maker, and used to make creative cakes. Interestingly though he worked in the textile factory as a carder. Sometimes I feel that I should use wool as I’m from Huddersfield, which was a woollen manfucturing area.

What was the first thing you made with a pair of jeans? I made a few portraits of the people who made

BEAUTIFULLY BRITISH MAGAZINE denim famous and changed public opinion about the fabric. I was amazed that icons such Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Debbie Harry seen wearing denim on and off screen made it what it is today. I went on to make James Dean’s portrait in his hometown in Indiana with the museum there, and Debbie Harry’s actual portrait, which made it a bit sweeter.

Each piece documents and tells a story, what inspires your designs? While everyone wants to talk about my work being in denim, many fail to connect all the work together. Taking away the portraits, my work is a lot about community and the changing fabric of our lives, especially urban environments. From a rural beginning, I see denim very much an urban fabric now.

So while my work can seem as versatile as denim itself, I look at aspects to document changes in our lives such as the closing pubs, laundrettes and newsstands. I do find that in portraying a familiar site in a common material, it creates something new and people see the beauty in these ever-changing locations.

The exhibition, Behind Closed Doors showed the flip side of this, showing materialised homes in London portrayed almost as Elle Decoration spreads but interrupted by a sole person in a melancholy image. You’d think someone who lived like that would be happy, but it questioned people.

Many people in the gallery said they saw themselves and the whole body together. I think this was some of my most powerful work. I recently did Hotel California, as I wanted to bring some brightness into the studio.

I also love to challenge

How easy is denim to work with? When I started, it was a lot of trial and error, and took me years to learn the skills to handle this material. The hardest thing to deal with is the fraying and matching the different shades. Now I have so many pairs of jeans, I can match, but I always think I can find something better and keep on looking and looking. The work is time consuming.

What does your jean stash look like, and do you have a favourite colour of jeans you like to work with? I get lots of donations of jeans, and now have around two thousand pairs. I organise them in shades, and then by type. I love the washes in denim because it allows me to make the work look like a painting. I like to match the denim by tone and shade, but also by cast. I have some yellow, ochre, brown, red ones, and my favourite is a white base.

As well as contemporary urban scenes, you’ve created portraits and record sleeves – tell us a bit about this work? The portraits have all been official commissions, and often do fall outside my real body of work. In 2013, the records were part of the closing and changing high street and represented a record store, as many were closing down. It also represented the changing high street and drive toward shopping online. The records I chose also had a connection with denim – either a denim clad iconic cover like Sticky Fingers or Born in the USA. The Country Bluegrass Blues (CBGB) bands that created the denim look also moved across the channel to spawn punk via Malcolm Maclaren and The Sex Pistols.

Your artwork looks flat but it’s a very 3D process, isn’t it? My work is very layered and that gets often lost online. For example, the laundrette pieces I know had 15 layers of denim in places, which makes it very three-dimensional, and really plays with the depth in the work. The biggest reactions to my work comes face-to-face. I’ve shown with the same gallery for eight years in London and they have sold out often before the doors open. While this seems great, as the work takes a long time it means people miss out and don’t get to see it. Of course, some of my work is really threedimensional, like the real Launderette, the Record Store, the Secret Garden, Newsstand and even a whole row of shops that I showed in the USA. This was born out of me wanting to make something more immersive to complement my gallery shows but built to really grow and enable me to show more work around the world.

Do you ever see yourself working with other materials? I used to say no, but there’s so much I want to do with denim and there still is. I got dragged too much into denim and my work isn’t all about jeans. My work is certainly not about selling more denim – I started to learn too

much about the industry and the more I do, the more I stop liking the material. So perhaps one day I may find something else. I’m an artist first

and foremost, and resent being called a denim artist. It’s just my medium.

Where can people see your work?

It’s best seen close up and

personal. In January 2020, my work will be in the London Art Fair. It will also be featured in museums around Europe, including Museum Riswijk by The Hague, Textiel Museet in Boras, Sweden and hopefully in Yorkshire in the UK, Germany and Genoa, and North Carolina in the US. It can also be viewed at www.ianberry. art or on Instagram @ianberry.art, I’ve also a limited number of copies left of the first edition of my book. Ian Berry Denim on Denim which can be purchased on the website.

Ian Berry www.ianberry.org