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Followers: Artist imagines how humans perceive one another with comical series

In his series Followers, Nottingham-based artist Alan Fears creates appealing sculptures of different characters to explore how we perceive one another. With some looking a little lost and dumb, Alan takes a comical look at human life.

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Colourful sculptural heads with exaggerated features in varying skin tones, hair colours and styles, some wearing glasses or hats, arranged in a group display

He explains: "In my mind, when I visualise a group of followers, I see a mixed bag of stereotypes, a sea of gormless faces waiting vacantly for a cue or command. They’re not real people, they don’t have thoughts and feelings, they’re just followers, strangers, faces, things. Yet, the longer you look at a random selection of beings, the more they become individuals, personalities. Just like pets, you start to humanise these strange faces, and in time you begin to adopt a favourite one or two. At some point you start to search for yourself in the crowd, and that may in fact be the true reason why some of us chose to follow each other in the first place."

A naive artist, a graphic artist, a pop artist – Alan considers to be a slice of each: "My style is simple and direct. The theme in most of my work revolves around reminding myself, and everybody else, how great and stupid humans can be and therefore how great and stupid life can be. You’re a follower, I’m a follower, we’re all followers following each other."

You can see the Followers at the Nottingham Castle Open, which opens from 22 October 2016 until 8 January 2017. To discover more about Alan, visit www.alanfears.com.

Via Creative Boom submission | All images courtesy of Alan Fears

Ceramic sculptural head with pale skin tone, oversized black-framed glasses with blue pupils, red lips and textured grey-white hair, by Alan Fears
Bright yellow-green sculptural head with pink inner features and a red mouth, part of Alan Fears' Followers series exploring human perception
Ceramic sculpture with a pale beige face, blue eyes and pink mouth, topped with crumpled red-brown plastic sheeting resembling hair
Stylised ceramic head sculpture with blue hair, peach-coloured face, raised eyebrow and red lips against a cream background
Sculptural head with brown face, black-framed glasses and red lips, topped with a bright blue textured wig, from Alan Fears' Followers series
Sculptural head with pink face, large white eyes and red mouth, black hair styled in a bob, and black neck with three white buttons
Brown sculptural head wearing bright blue glasses and a red tongue, with white textured ear detail, from Alan Fears's Followers series
Ceramic head sculpture with lime-green hair, wearing a bright blue cap reading "LIFE" with a red heart, and a red mouth, against white background
A row of whimsical ceramic head sculptures with exaggerated features, painted with different hairstyles, expressions and accessories in Alan Fears' Followers series
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