(Above) Mark Evans working on Ali vs Jones - When Butterflies Sting (2007). © markevansart.com
Exhibition: Mark Evans – Skin Deep, Scream, London, until May 8 2010
If John Terry pays a potential visit to the giant leather etching of him dominating a wall at Scream, he'll be joining a fan club for the pioneering craftsman which already includes fellow England defender Rio Ferdinand.
Ferdinand won a bidding war with pop star Craig David to buy B.I.G, Evans's depiction of rapper Biggie Smalls, at auction in 2009.
Footballer Rio Ferdinand outbid pop star Craig David for B.I.G (2009). © markevansart.com
"It went up from a grand to £22,000," says Evans, who hit it off with his luminary buyer.
"Suddenly I'd just got £22,000 for a piece of artwork. It totally funded my studio time, because these pieces take so long."
Evans's creative process, carving famous faces and scenes in layers of tiny cuts on leather hides, often means a three-month production cycle for each piece.
There's The Incredible Hulk in the window (reflecting Evans's fury at "being shafted" by "bulls*** " art world suitors), Vladimir Putin looking typically stern-faced, a blow-up Paris Hilton in red and a portrait ordered by Naomi Campbell to mark her 25th year as a supermodel.
Naomi Campbell approved of Skin Deep (2010) for London Fashion Week. © the artist
Evans grew up on a Welsh farm, spending his childhood scraping trees with a jubilee knife given to him by his granddad.
He studied fine art at Middlesex in the 1990s, but found he had more in common with reformed North London gangsters than his peers.
"I fell in with a group of ex-convicts," he says. "One of them was a pro knife-fighter, one of them was an assassin for a Columbian drug group. I was fascinated and influenced by these characters – they weren’t art buyers, they were men's men.
"I thought, 'if I do a portrait of someone like Muhammed Ali, these guys are going to go crazy.' My subconscious goal was to shut them up.'"
Evans's take on Paris Hilton, complete with a blow-up valve in her neck. © the artist
His eye for icons was steeled, but Evans's real moment of truth arrived through a furry medium.
"It was Boxing Day about ten years ago," he recalls. "We were round my gran's flat in Wales, there were way too many people. Rather than embracing Christmas, my gran was shouting 'don't let the cat out, it's going to get run over.'
"The cat freaked out and scratched her, and the blood got on my new leather jacket. It wouldn't come off with Fairy Liquid, so I went back to my garage in Enfield and had a go at it with a palette knife."
Evans's "Eureka lightbulb moment" resulted in a depiction of Jimi Hendrix on the back of the stained coat.
Images of skulls inspired by Old Master Vanitas paintings join portraits of The Krays, Giorgio Armani and Kurt Cobain in the show by Evans, who has also been asked to create the world's most expensive wallpaper in a £1.88 million commission by a Russian billionaire. © the artist
"In my head this explosion went off," he says, sporting the faded coat that started it all.
"We were down Harvey Nicks and I got stopped five times. This guy ran after me, I thought I was going to get mugged. He was out of breath asking 'where did you get your coat?'"
A similarly favourable reception from fashion magazines convinced Evans to press on. "That gave me the balls to get in debt to bankroll this for a few years," he admits.
After a decade honing his skill, he's now "starting to feel like I've got something to say about the world". An etching of a skull features butterflies shooting out of it in a symbol, he reckons, of "death being shot in the head and set on fire".
"It's about the end of death. The butterfly makes a coffin out of itself and is then essentially reborn. It's mad."
John Terry's arms have been enlarged to make him "like Popeye or something", says Evans. © the artist
The rather less gentle torso of Terry stands opposite, roaring bestially while carrying Goliath's decapitated head in an unlikely re-imagining of Caravaggio's David.
"I want to get back to that primal, early man rawness," says Evans, inspired by the visceral nature of the animal skins he uses.
"He's fearless on the pitch, he's got the sporting tenacity of Mike Tyson. It's that warrior gene, like a God of war. That desire in some men just doesn't go away."
Scream, Bruton Street, London. Open 10am-6pm Monday-Friday, 11am-5pm Saturday (closed Sunday). Admission free. Visit Scream online or Mark Evans Art for more.
Watch Mark Evans talk about his skulls series below:
