In conversation with Oscar Doughty
Hosted by Holly Barton at Beer Rebellion for Deer In Traffic.
So Oscar Doughty,
Yes that is my name,
Tell me a bit more about your practice. I mean, I know you moved from Norfolk to London for your graphic design.
That feels unnecessary to add that in.
Yeah, you moved. Yeah. And I've seen your practice take shape in many different forms.
Yes.
But what does it mean to you as of right now in context with the show?
So, I was watching Six Feet Under recently and there was something that stuck out to me during that watch, which was someone described their lack of creating as the fallow years, as in letting the soil rest. And I thought that was very beautiful, because I think I really struggled to make new work at the rate I used to when I was around 18 or 19. So I think this show to me is kind of like throwing something together very intensely and very quickly and kind of escaping the edit more than writing mindset.
Yeah. I think as a creator, I think knowing when to stop is such an important part.
Well knowing when not to start is also important
I meant your brain thinks so differently to how other people perceive your own artwork. What’s finished to a viewer might not be finished to you as the artist. And I think it's quite hard to know when that is and when to listen to other people, and when not to listen to other people.
Haha well yeah, I do think my attitude to producing work is very much like if it doesn't have layers - well, I rarely finish anything, so I will continue working on something so long as there's stuff to discover in it.
So, with this show, it really started as one thing and stayed as that one thing for two months. and then a few days ago it became a completely different concept and then midway through doing that concept I had a change of mind and then it became something else and then now we're recording this the day before the show goes up and I have about half of the show ready.
Working very much under stress.
That's, I think, the only way I produce work and ever have.
It's just with a deadline.
Do you feel it works for you?
Yeah, I think the more intense the deadline and the worse the consequences of not meeting it, the better the work. That's very arrogant. Sorry.
The quality that you produce in the pressure of meeting the deadline is better than when you don't have any deadline and it's just kind of like creating work to create work.
Exactly. So I think I need some form of motivation, and I need some form of outcome that isn't self-determined so I don't think I'd ever be able to complete work to then submit for a competition. It must be like someone has come to me and said I need this by now so then I'll do it the night before even though I know about it for months.
What a way to work.
Have you always found that within graphic design, because you worked at a media company which was producing under deadlines in your formative years, do you think that has shaped how you work as a graphic designer now?
That's a great question
I feel like I don't even have an answer ready for that. I think how you work when you work for commercial graphic designers has to be a bit different.
I actually don't like the bulk of the work that I produced at the media company because I don't think it was the right environment for me to kind of tap into anything in myself. I mean, well - I make coffee now as well I'm a barista and you know I don't feel like inspired every time I make a latte ‘yeah this is the best thing ever’ but I kind of get that feeling when I cook for you or cook for people I love.
I think it would be kind of like, I guess maybe chefs do this still and they love it and they love just cooking for everyone and every meal had so much passion for it, but it was hard for me to tap into anything that wasn't obvious or just surface level because it felt like such a job and I was kind of making stuff for car insurance -
I'm gonna ask my own question to myself okay we should post the audio of this as well because I think that's the only way anyone's going to be able to understand what's happening haha.
I have had a long period of time of not designing anything, and I've kind of hopped between different hobbies and creative mediums. Ultimately, I think I'll always be a designer, but I kind of hate that at the same time and I reject it, sounds quite edgy but I do.
I think one of the challenges I've set myself at least for this project and hopefully it's something I can continue, is I wanted to use as little of any design software as possible.
Even though it's all about typography, none of it has been typed on a computer. It's all Letraset which is dry, transfer, text.
What is that?
So in the, I think it was the 80s or the 90s, before personal computers and Microsoft Word, if you wanted to make a magazine or a poster or something and you wanted a font on it and you couldn't afford to go to a print shop, you could order catalogues and they would have these fonts, dozens of each letter in uppercase and lowercase, and you would dry transfer, rub the words onto the paper. So everything that's made it into the show has been like hand pushed through onto the page, which is quite a lengthy process but it's also I don't know it's nice to do something in graphic design that isn't so computer-based. I mean like the most advanced software that I was relying on really was like Microsoft Word or Pages so I could organize everything and print it all but yeah that's been nice anyway.
um tell us about the kind of process of including badges when it's a show about typography/ design.
I’ve been obsessing a little bit about this quote Bruno Munari said about how art these days in modern art is kind of a big grab for attention and there's this one masterpiece that's almost mythologized so people come in and feel smaller than the work. But ultimately I think his point as the artists of today will be the people that make can openers and design everyday things, whatever they use. So I wanted something that didn’t have money or anything as barrier for people to enjoy or consume the show. And I like the idea of people being able to take part of it away.
Who was that inspired by?
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, that piece is unbelievable and I think this is like slightly inspired because if it was anything more inspired it would be offensive because that piece is so good. The work is called ‘Portrait of Ross’
I won't go too much into it because it's quite a personal piece for the artist but it was my favourite piece for a long time.
And I used the similar kind of a concept with an audience-dismantled show so each viewer that would come and would take a piece of the art home with them so yeah that was definitely an inspiration.
Do you have any other sort of inspiration within your design led practice?
I'm kind of ashamed to admit that well actually there's about three or four designers that I really like and there's probably like five designers I know the name of. I definitely should know more designers but I have to admit that most of my interaction with design is just kind of like every day, I don't really study it too much.
I notice things I like in everyday life and copy that so I think a lot of this show was probably just inspired by how much I like text when it's really small and then zoomed in on and how you can see all the printed edges and I really like that visually.
It's kind of like the film grain of print in the design world. it's nice and I like to try and get away from the whole Instagram graphic design stuff which is very based on trends and it feels very tied in with brands and commercial elements. I think there's this whole other side to design which is just fun, making stupid things look less stupid or more stupid based on how you arrange it.
I don't know I just think that's such a nice part of it when we're not thinking so much about the theory of anything or the practicalities, just stripping everything away.
yeah exactly it's like kind of primal form.
well I guess the same way that you can paint for fun this was just what the show has been about really, how can I have fun and look at graphic design that has completely and utterly nothing to do with commercialisation.
I think calling it an art show is actually a bit of a stretch it's more like I was just having some fun and yeah maybe there's a little social experiment involved.
Dot, dot, dot.
You have to follow my substack @byoscarjames Yeah. I'm going to link my substack. Plug the substack. And then...
But alongside of this sort of social experimentation of the show, you do have layers of how the show is going to change throughout the month.
This is true. Yeah. invite people back!
it won't be different every day no but it'll take a different form than the opening night. who knows you might see yourself inside the show maybe if i get your written consent.
what I want to say is what appeals to me so much about what you're doing with beer rebellion is you've kind of stripped away all the fine artness of a gallery. I love that it's in a pub. So you've got all this great work from all these other amazing emerging artists and then there's no kind of barrier for entry.
You know, if you buy a pint, then you're allowed in the pub, then you're allowed in your gallery, which is really cool. And I like that, and I like that it's not even the focus, it's just a background thing.
when I was thinking about that as well, I kind of wanted a concept for my show. And then I was thinking about, how can I kind of make this for people and involve people in it as well? So there will be an element of work going up throughout the month that involves people interacting with the main piece. Yes. Very ambiguous and exciting.
It is quite ambiguous.
I sort of almost think as well that the main piece of this is an essay that I'm writing alongside, an accompanying essay, which I won't go into too much. But you can find that on my substack. Yeah. In about a month.
A very brief sort of explanation of my show is there are some badges, 500 badges. All handmade. And I have cramps in my hands and my tendons.
And an RTI? STI? Wait no pahah RSI.
Yeah RSI not an STI... again..
what were we even talking about? how did we get here ? oh the badges there are 500 badges, half of them say pro-hedgehog, half of them say anti-hedgehog all of these pieces come together on some plywood boards and they're all free for people to just come and take.
And the main actual piece from this is just going to be the data afterwards of how many of each side go. But the room will be full of messaging around hedgehogs. And the idea basically is that its a universal truth that everyone likes hedgehogs. So I'm trying to see will this messaging in this environment affect the amount of people that are either for or against hedgehogs?
That's very interesting.
I think it's kind of stupid, but...
Why hedgehogs in particular?
They are sort of, you know, amongst British people especially so loved, even though they're not one of those things that I think most people actively think about hedgehogs but you'd be very in the minority to have a negative opinion of them.
initially it was pro-ants or anti-ants just because I liked how anti-ants looked when it was written but then I thought actually that doesn't make any sense because it makes complete sense to not like ants, they kind of crawl everywhere and they're very annoying and they don't really do much.
I don't think anyone would see a hedgehog and be like ‘that ruined my day’ so that was kind of the goal was to pick something that people have a fondness of to see if I can turn them against it.
How evil of you
The thing is, I'm going to be wearing a pro-Hedgehog badge.
I'm just allowing people to have a voice of their own opinions. But also another thing that I've been imagining, even though none of this has even happened yet, I've just been thinking about is I’ve obviously made 500 badges, so at least one person is going to get an anti-Hedgehog badge. And at that point, it's been a success. the whole art show. Very low bar for success.
But at that point, they will all be having a good time in the pub because there'll be kind of a clear idea of what's going on. But then someone has to get on the tube later that day with just a badge that says Anti-Hedgehog and maybe they'll be by themselves and people will wonder, why does this fucking miserable person hate hedgehogs so much that he's gone and bought a badge?
That's another big motivation for me is to just confuse some people on the tube.
I don't think I have any more questions, but I feel like I should.
Speechless.
Yeah, just blown away. Do you have anything of significance you want to add about not even just the show, but as who you are as an artist yourself?
I don't know.
It does feel like a bit of a stretch to call me an artist. because it's like, I don't even know what I'm doing. It's just a hedgehog's on a badge.
I mean no you’re definitely an artist
I guess modern art can be whatever but I don't know if I’d call me that,
I think that's more self-deprecating
in my mind if you're an artist you make art so I kind of feel like could I be a Hedgehog Badgest.
I don't think you need to label it or anything.
That's true. Yeah. I'll just be Oscar. Yeah.
So come and see Oscar James Doughty's show.
Yes. I've started advertising myself with my middle name now. Because that's how you get an Instagram handle.
Anything more?
I don't think anyone's made it this far.
Thank you Holly for having me at Beer Rebellion.
Thank you Oscar James Doughty for being the artist of Beer Rebellion this month. And thank you to Beer Rebellion.
Oscar Doughty's show will be on display at Beer Rebellion from the 8th of September 2026.
Private view 7pm 08.09.26
Beer Rebellion, 129 Queen’s Rd, London, SE15 2ND
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