Attention Seeker | Mr.Doodle
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Sam Cox, AKA The Doodle Man, has just spent a full week in residence, building ‘Doodle Land’ from a once blank canvas on the walls, floors and fixtures of the gallery’s steely interior.Whitewash surfaces have been taken over by a monochromatic infestation of ink-doodled inhabitants and their evolved environment, as designed over the past week by their creator / parent who also lives amongst them. Inhabiting characters have been developed and nurtured by self-titled ‘Attention Seeker’, The Doodle Man, and nourished with fun food stuff including pizza, chicken nuggets and lollipops (from what we could decipher). There’s even a big banqueting table, complete with doodled flower and vase, in the main room that The Doodle Man advises is ‘the character’s Last Supper.’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVVfvsVDZLwInhabitants have been free to roam their new world and explore as they see fit, and have clearly ventured beyond the main room, creeping around and beyond the walls of the short white corridor leading into the ‘dark side’ that is the back of the gallery and domain of The Doodle Man’s evil twin / alter-ego. It’s here that the work becomes more eery (and even more fun) and we can see forbidden fruits being enjoyed alongside moving collage images with sound that bring the frenzied doodles even more to life. In a photo collage-based video clip The Doodle Man also tells his story from birth, which also stars his evil twin, the penman of the more sinister stuff; the skeletons and violence.
The Doodle Man’s entirely hand-drawn and mixed-media exhibition doesn’t fail to provoke a ‘wow.’ He’s lived and breathed this work almost 24/7, sleeping about 4 hours a night between 2 and 6 am and the results are impressive. Some of the works designed in-situ, such as canvases and flowerpots, have been sold off to visitors to the gallery, many of whom are Doodle Man YouTube fans that ventured from outside London. The Doodle Man told us he was amazed at how far people had come to see his work, including younger fans of his YouTube channel that had ‘even travelled all the way from Devon.’ We were thrilled to get an original sketch from the very cheery man of doodles himself, aptly in our Blank Book. What’s next for the man of mono? He’s going to scribble on, sketching his way around the world on his way back to Doodle Land ‘high up in the sky,’ while we return to the stark reality of the commute home.Words: Neil Byrne