David Bray graduated from Central St. Martins, London with a degree in Graphic Design in 1992 and has been a freelance illustrator since 1996 where he has developed an extensive portfolio of clients, including Harvey Nichols, MTV, Various Production, Puma, H&M, Vodafone, BBC Television, etc... His compelling works reveal his lifetime love of drawing and an active imagination. Bray creates intricate, time-consuming drawings, which explore emotion, utopia and a world of fantasy, mainly taking women and animals as his motif. Many of the works are based on past experiences, old relationships or current friendships. Taking artists such as Allen Jones from the 60’s and Eric Stanton as a source of inspiration for their erotic and almost fetishistic works, Bray establishes his own illusionary space. He has managed to create a unique world of his own using mainly the pencil, paper and pen as his tools of the trade with computers having as little influence as possible in his work. In this day and age, that is something to be extremely proud of. “It seemed as if Graphic Design was becoming more digital or computer-based and I wanted to explore the illustration side of things more.”

A sense of continuity and evolvement within the creative process can be seen in Bray’s series, as he has explained, “I find it challenging to try and create these two different styles of animal and women characters, put them in the same drawing and see how I could make them interact. It’s all about nature, in its essences. One day, I might want to draw a girl sitting on a hippo. That may lead to me wanting to draw a lion standing on something and that will lead me onto the next drawing. So I will work on 4-5 drawings all at the same time and each drawing will influence the next one; it’s like a chart going on in my head.”