Framed: Peche

Peche is the moniker of Australian artist, illustrator and graphic designer Dipesh Prasad. His work pretty much speaks for itself, and we caught up recently for a Q&A.

Peche, thank you for taking the time to do this!
It's good, I usually do interviews through e-mail instead, just sitting at home in my pyjamas.

You've moved back to Perth!
Yep. A friend called me with a job offer, so now I'm lecturing at Curtin. Drove across from Melbourne.

What are you teaching?
Graphics, branding, design, that sort of thing.

Seems like a pretty natural progression from your original line of work?
Yeah, it's cool. Some of the students are insane though, better than me!

Talk us through a typical day for you, what's it like?
It varies, I go through phases with my routine; sometimes I'm slack and sometimes I'm organised. Right now, I'm in holiday mode, so it's wake up late, gym, watch Game of Thrones, chill, play with my puppy. From February, it'll be work mode - that's usually lecture, design, gym, and then just chill. I'll be up really late at night, working until 4AM on designs or marking.

What have you been doing lately?
The past week, I've been working on a mural in Architects & Heroes cafe in Subiaco, which was wicked. I'm also doing the branding for Micrology, a coffee roasting company, and working on an Arrested Development font.

Ah yes, the Arrested Development font! Saw that, insanely cool stuff. For those who don't know your artwork, how would you describe it?
It's very versatile - I do graphics, street art, fine art. It's cool when you can spot a painting and tell who it's by because of the style but you can't really do that with mine, I go through a bunch of different styles. Chameleonish, is that a word?

It is now! Do you prefer a particular format the most?
I go through phases where I'll be really into street art for a while and do a lot of that, then maybe switch over to design, then photography.

How'd you get into it? Were you always interested in the visual arts?
I always drew a lot of X-Men and Ninja Turtles ---

Fuck yes, X-Men.
Oh, and Street Fighter 2! In school, I was always really bad at maths - my best subjects were English and Art. I got an art scholarship in high school so I'd go in six days a week, doing extra art classes on Saturdays while everyone else was hanging out. I hated it at the time, my parents made me do it. I did graphic design in TAFE and my teacher told me I was shit at it, but I just ignored that and went on to do it at Uni, then for work.

Can definitely see how that would've been an influence. Oh right, speaking of influences, who or what would you say influences your work?
Everything! The street art in Melbourne is of such a high calibre, so definitely my peers. But there's so much out there, online, it's easy to get stuck looking through websites. I don't want to get too caught up in looking at others' work and not getting anything done myself.

Do you have a preference in terms of working in digital art vs traditional?
Yeah, I prefer freehand. Digital's cool but there's just so much more you can do with things like brush sensitivity and textures. There's a social aspect to it too, when you're out painting instead of sitting in front of a screen all day.

And if you had to choose a different profession?
Anything roughly to do with art, that's my main interest. I just kind of fell into teaching.

What are you hoping to get up to this year? Any plans for 2014?
I'm moderating for universities, so I get to travel for that. A lot of traveling, and doing more walls, especially more central and visible public walls. I'm going to New York soon, going to shoot a lot of photography and footage.

You did a lot of traveling last year too, whereabouts?
Japan - twice, actually; Singapore, Bali, and drove across Australia.

What was the drive across the country like?
I went through all these creepy small towns, like something out of a zombie movie - I remember seeing this one kid just playing with a ball and it was completely desolate. Painted a crow, an abstract crow, on an outhouse near the Nullabour, and it was good because you could hear a car coming from a hundred metres away - you had time to pack everything up and go without getting caught.

So what's in store for the next few days?
Packing for New York, it's going to be so cold. I don't know what to take!

Layers, plenty of layers.
And photography equipment! Then I'm showing around a friend from Japan on Australia Day, and flying out on Monday.

You can find more of Peche's art here, or stay up to date via Facebook.