Sitting at my desk, I chuckled this to myself the first time I looked at Aidan Domenis' work. I’m sure I'm not alone in finding Aidan's artwork to be spectacularly groovy!

In a departure from our usual current-Lakehead-student focus, today we're shifting our sights towards the Thunder Bay community. It is with great pleasure that I introduce a local to Thunder Bay and a friend of The Argus, Aidan Domenis. Currently living in Montreal, Aidan first began to seriously explore art in grade 12 while painting sets for a school play. During this time, something clicked for Aiden, leading him to drop classes such as construction and architecture, in favour of visual arts classes: "This pivotal moment led me to study 1 year of Fine Arts at Lakehead University and 3 years of Interactive Media at Confederation College. This helped me to discover some of my identities as an artist and what I REALLY wanted to do with myself". Now living with his eyes wide open, Aidan began to discover the world of possibilities and opportunities surrounding him.

"I am many different things; a musician, a sewist, a joker, a smoker, and a midnight toker; but one that makes me especially excited is being an illustrator. Illustration allows me to ease my mind of the overwhelming amount of inspiration I get and turn it into something visual. I often find myself obsessing over things that I see and either wanting to replicate it or mould it into something entirely different. I don't feel that I illustrate very often but that's mostly because my inspiration comes sporadically. That's what keeps me on my toes and gets me excited."

The immersive sense of identity Aidan holds is inspiring. Possessing the drive and trust in himself to explore the various versions of who he is transfers to his work beautifully. With bold lines and popping colours, Aidan's work is a masterclass in bringing the two-dimensional image to life.

Developing his body of work during the pandemic has offered its own unique set of challenges. Still, Aidan seems to have the right perspective to look beyond what society is currently dealing with.

"The pandemic has equally strained and elevated the development of my style. I've been able to work more into my niche but have lost some motivation to work on drawings. Overall, I like to have a calm attitude towards my art; I don't like to push things. I have the most fun when my illustrations are quick and mindless. Sometimes this results in a messy, unrefined look but I tend to connect more with that aesthetic. The longer I obsess about making a drawing look perfect, the more I lose the feel for my work. I am very excited to continue exploring my identity as an artist and push myself."

Q: What is your inspiration?

A: There are a lot of things that inspire me. It could be anything from a combination of interesting colours, some bold typography, a striking or simple piece of art, funky clothing, stimulating music, a peculiar conversation or experience, etc. I find I try to tailor my style towards a retro / mid-century look but I don't think I hold specific artists or styles close to my heart for too long. I cannot allow myself to stick to one style. I'm always jumping from one style to the next with one principle thought: keep it looking retro. I thoroughly enjoy drawing musicians from the 60s and 70s while also making up my own characters. I tend to be greatly inspired by people’s faces and fashion which is why I use people as my main subject the majority of the time. I owe my early adventures into character drawings to a very talented artist named Craig Gleason.

Q: What is your goal as an artist?

A: I think my goal as an artist is to escape the feeling that my work isn't consistent enough. Similarly, I wish to keep expanding my capabilities and techniques within my style. I've realized that I can replicate different styles fairly well and not only because people ask me to, but also because I WANT to. I've come to the conclusion that I simply will never have a specific unique way to draw subjects, and that I don't want to either. Nothing excites me more than discovering a new technique or approach to a drawing. If my drawings become repetitive and I lose my experimental nature, I fear I will lose my drive to be an artist. I want to create things that I can appreciate along with the people that are viewing my art.

Q: What is your artistic medium?

A: Currently, all of my illustrations are done digitally. I used to have a process of drawing on paper with pencil, pens, and marker then scanning my work but I soon determined that I needed to shift to the digital world. I mostly use procreate on the iPad Pro, but I do miss traditional pencil on paper drawings.

Q: What are you currently working on?

A: I am definitely procrastinating a few projects right now. One of those is an album cover for a band that I am a part of. A lovely man named Mike Luce will be releasing an album of his most refined tunes under the moniker "the Zeldas" hopefully in February. This album was fully written and recorded by Mike. Myself and the rest of the band are all sitting on other tunes that we have written together, but I have been given the opportunity to give the album a visual identity. I am also responsible for the band logo/typography. For this project, I'm looking to really break my traditional style and dive into some artistic-realism cross-hatching. I have no clue how it will turn out.

The following images and descriptions were provided by Aidan Domenis:

A drawing of country hero Gram Parsons in his famous nudie suit. This is a digital drawing exploring portraiture in a more cartoonish way. It was done on the iPad Pro using Procreate. I was inspired by listening to loads of 60s country music, specifically Parson’s most popular band “The Flying Burrito Brothers.”

This drawing depicts a fictional character by the name “Collared Greene.” The name is something I had come up with long before the drawing but I sat on it until I had a better idea of what the character would look like. Inspired by 70s rock and a white/red polka dot shirt, this drawing was done digitally in Procreate.

In a 1977 interview, Iggy Pop describes punk rock as “a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators.” I thought that was equally hilarious and bad*** so I decided to draw a dilettante punk. The face was stolen from an image of Alice Cooper’s band where one member is lurking in the shadows. Done digitally using Procreate.

This is another digital drawing, this time of Lou Reed. I think I was driven to do this one out of boredom but also because of my inability to determine if Lou was actually a friendly person under his personas. I wanted to dramatize his stale emotion but give him a thumbs up to create a confusing emotion.

Aidan Domenis worked in collaboration with The Argus team to design our upcoming merchandise, which will be available for pre-order on March 1st, 2021. We are thrilled to present his work both in this article and on the merchandise.

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