Disco, Decadence & Digital Art with Michelle Spearman
Sexy Surreal Visuals
Penthouse spoke to the artist about how she developed her unique style, why retro porn gets her creative juices flowing, and the decision that saw her ditch academia for a full-time career in art.
Tell us a bit about you.
I’m a sensitive, introverted night owl, and maybe a bit of a hedonist—and I think it shows in my work. I love to consume and create art that feeds the senses. I’m happy with a piece when it’s both visually striking and represents some duality like pain versus pleasure, beauty versus ugliness, safety versus danger.
How did you find your way to a career in art?
I’ve always made art, but it didn’t occur to me to make it a career until recently. I studied psychology in college, but as graduation neared, I kept ditching my research group. I also slept through the GRE that would determine if I could enter grad school. I think I’d had enough of academia. I didn’t understand what it could offer me.
After that, I was aimless for a while. I worked day jobs and wrote a style blog in my free time. No one read it, but I loved piecing each post together—dressing up, taking photos and crafting a story around each look.
In 2018, I moved to Dallas to be near friends. Their style inspired me to resurrect the blog, this time as an online secondhand clothing store. I needed branding to make it official, so I drew it myself. My boyfriend at the time noticed and gifted me a tablet. That’s when I started exploring the style I use today. People took more notice of my artwork than my clothing, so I ran with it.
The short answer is that I’m unhappy unless I’m my own boss. I don’t consider myself that brave or ambitious. It’s more that the pains of working a nine-to-five outweighs the pains of freelancing.
How did you develop your style?
I imitated my favorite airbrush artists of the ’70s and ’80s. When I don’t have a starting point, I often find luck in picking up where someone else left off.
We should mention that we slightly cropped a couple of those images in order to fit the gallery layout, but we did want to make them large enough for you to appreciate the vintage erotica detail. Amazing.
What inspires your art?
The golden age of advertising, sex, taboo, glamour, disco and decadence.
What is it about vintage erotica that gets your creative juices flowing?
I’m trying to figure that out, and this is what I’ve come up with: Erotica is inherent to every generation. We humans have been horny since we’ve existed. The spirit and trends of a specific generation, however, belong only to that generation. So, seeing a universal concept like erotica through a narrow lens—like the ’80s zeitgeist—shows the commonplace in a new light. You could do that with any subject, but sex is fun to play with. It’s universal, but people have a weird relationship with it, so it’s that much more compelling.
What drives you to create the type of art you do?
It’s fun! It’s sexy and surreal and weird. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but at the same time it requires great precision. It’s what I want to be: silly and serious.
How has your art evolved over time?
I suppose it’s gotten better. The more I create, the more I learn what works for me and what I shouldn’t even attempt to draw. I’d love for my technique to evolve, but the subject matter, on the other hand, is something that could stay constant and I’d be totally happy. Like other subjects, the world of erotica is so wide that I think I could explore it forever. Even if I only did illustrations of one human body for the rest of my life, there would always be some new way of representing it.
Tell us about some of your art achievements or highlights?
I don’t have any awards, so my achievements are more personal in nature. It’s an achievement anytime I land a job with a client who has values and tastes that are similar to mine. I’m so lucky to work with them. They often bring concepts to me I could never have dreamed of myself, and it’s always an honor to help them bring them to life.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to pursue art?
If you’re pursuing art to make money and have any talent at all, keep working on your craft, but at this point networking is a priority. It’s an icky word, but less so if you think about it as going out for drinks and meeting new people.
Ignore Insta-therapy and DO compare yourself to others. You need to know what sets you apart from others and in what ways you’re similar. It’s how you’ll assess your strengths and weaknesses. It’s not about how you stack up quantitatively as much as “What are successful artists doing?” and “What are the practices of artists who aren’t getting a lot of work?” And “Where do I fit in?”
Michelle Spearman works as a freelance illustrator in Dallas, Texas, You can find her easily on Instagram and on her own site, MichelleSpearmanArt. Feel free to buy something. What better way might there be to start up interesting conversations than having a golden switchblade with a couple of ladybugs on it hanging on your living room wall?
