Arts
Marvel man
Pic courtesy You’re my favorite
“Art is the only way I have for unpacking my world. I want to live with as much truth as I can muster and the only way that I find any kind of truth has been through making art of any kind. And it’s a very personal, very selfish truth.”
It’s a Tuesday morning as the Sunday Times caught up with Ian Bertram, who is here on holiday. Ian who started off as a commercial comic book illustrator at the age of 18 was set up with a gig for Marvel comics at the age of 22. Today, he lives and works as an artist in New York and his work has appeared in world famous comics such as DC and Dark Horse. He has done illustrations for Marvel’s famed titles such as Batman, Xmen and Wolverine.
He has also been credited as an interior artist for the Batman anniversary special edition from DC Comics, and also as the variant cover artist for DC’s ‘Sinestro #10.’ Apart from his commercial work however, Ian’s favourite pieces are his more personal ones, as we found out
As a kid, he was always drawing, he tells us. It was at the age of 14 when he felt the need to “explore and sort of channel young aggression, curiosity and fear into anything,” that he took it seriously. To him that outlet was drawing.
His favourite comic book character was ‘Batman’ but he adds, it’s hard to find the same inspiration in the characters today, because they have become more two dimensional. “As you get older the problems that they face in the comics are a lot more black and white than they are in reality.”
On holiday in Sri Lanka these past five weeks he has been using his time to come up with more personal artwork, which he will be exhibiting at the Barefoot Gallery café today (September 18) from 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. and tomorrow (September 19) from 10 a.m.- 7 p.m.
“This is much more personal and more of what I want to do,” he says. He adds that with the comics, it’s work, it’s a job and about meeting deadlines, you hope to turn in pieces that you are proud of, but with his personal artwork, he gets to see a piece truly finished.
Ian Bertram in Colombo
He reminisces that Sri Lanka has been a great experience. “I’ve been introduced to a lot of really fascinating people.” One of the portraits he has done is of young Lankan playwright and director Arun Prematilleke Welandawe whom he describes as an incredible person. “I thought he was very inspiring.”
The themes surrounding the other illustrations,in certain ways are based on the people Ian has met here.
Ian tends to see the world in a darker way, he tells us.
“The illustrations are kind of grotesquelike pieces depicting darker sides. I want to have people be a little uncomfortable when they look at them and then wonder why.”
“There’s a lot of foliage, there’s darkness to it. From what I’ve been told about the history of Sri Lanka and even just being here, there’s a lot of darkness underneath a lot,” he says adding that even though everyone was really friendly and welcoming, there seemed to be a dark undercurrent. He also takes the crows as an example.“They are like these scavenger birds that have represented death symbolically and they’re everywhere in this beach paradise and it’s fascinating.”