Jody Barton – once of London, and now, for a few years, a resident of Copenhagen – is one of the artists who inspired us to set up Beach. I remember seeing this video, for MC Paul Barman, bloody years ago. His vast portfolio of personal work contains rad, loose, usually-monochrome graphics accompanied by a slogan that at first seems nonsensical but gets stuck in your head for a few hours: ‘Kiss The Fist, Sniff The Wrist’, ‘I’m Not A JPG I’m a Human Being’.
Jody runs a rad T-shirt company called Black Humours, which is pretty much exclusively available in Japan. But we at Beach have managed to get a selection of pins and patches by him, which you can get here, or in the featured products below. We visited him in CPH to chat about sex with horses and why dolphins are shit.
Hi Jody, how’s tricks?
Oh you know. Just the one bad trick of drawing well, while my hands shake from getting the balance of new parent fatigue vs coffee wrong again.
What are you up to today?
Drawing tiny bubblegum comic strips about people having sex with horses. Nothing out of the ordinary.
You’ve been in Copenhagen for a little while now: how’s working there different from working in London? What are the pros and cons compared to being stuck in stinky Britain.
Copenhagen is the most civilised place on earth. Why don’t you all move here?
You’ve recently done a line of pins: how did that come about? You funded them through Kickstarter right?
I did – using the power of blackmail and the threat of continued membership of my ludicrous junk mail machinery I squeezed £25 out of friends. It went fine. They got made, I lost money. It’s art!
Your commercial work is great and you’ve got a client list of – I imagine – pretty chill clients. Who’s your favourite to work with, and what’s been your favourite project?
I hate all commercial clients – it’s what they expect. They hire me so they can feel bad about themselves and we can create useless, fractured and senseless work together. I never get hired twice by the same cool people. I actually make my very modest living from my T-shirt company in Japan. I’m about as rich as a dustman. Don’t go to college it’s a trap!
What’s your beef with dolphins?
Foul, filthy and DEFINITELY fish. No matter what the ’science’ books say.
What have you got coming up?
Nothing much – oh, yeah!, actually I’m doing some T-shirts for a Japanese rock festival. I’m the oldest teenager in town.
Thanks Jody! Grab a pin here.
