WORDS: GRASHINA GABELMANN
ILLUSTRATIONS: KAI NODLAND
Kai Nodland is a Norwegian London-based illustrator who fully embraces the kid within in his drawings, and is working on about a hundred different projects at once.
You’re Norwegian living in London, but you’re known as “That German Fella”. Why is that?
I get mistaken for loads of different nationalities due to a Norwegian accent. When I first came to Britain my accent was quite American, but now finally it has become more authentically British. A few Norwegian quirks still linger, so I sometimes get taken for being South African or Dutch. Not many people here in England seem to actually know where my home country is – some placing it somewhere around Moldova or Latvia! At least they know A-ha.
You’ve got quite a unique style. Some of your drawings could be mistaken for children’s refrigerator scribbles. Did you consciously work on this or did have you always drawn this way?
I’ve gone through a lot of styles since I was a little one. When I was about nine I liked to draw intricate mazes on the back of homework papers. In my early teens I totally went for photo-realism, usually with a man fighting a dragon or something. Some sort of photo-realism was important to me up until university, where I was introduced to a wealth of different styles. I found the photo-realistic approach very limited, so eventually I started experimenting. I found myself influenced greatly by Henry Darger, Jean Michel Basquiat, and other outsider and Art Brut artists. Outsider artists, like kids, seem so unconstrained when they work, which is something I’ve always admired.
You are also currently working on a children’s book The Man Who Lost His Nose. Can you give our readers a spoiler? Where is the man’s nose and why did he lose it?
In all honesty I don’t know, it was written by my partner’s father. It was a bedtime story he would tell and he would just make stuff up! It would be different every time, so it fully depends on what I can remember. I think that randomness brings a cool dimension to it. From what I understand, one constant is that the guy just wakes up without a nose, and goes on a quest to find it, and later it gets delivered to his door by some monster.
Why this fascination with kid stuff? Are you the Peter Pan of illustrators?
I do grown up things too! I pay bills, make delicious meals, scratch my beard, get annoyed when people play music on the bus. I’m growing mint on my windowsill! If that’s not grown up, I don’t know what is.
What were your favourite stories growing up as a kid?
The first book I read to myself was The Twits by Roald Dahl; I’ll always have a soft spot for that one.
Name three illustrators Flamingo readers absolutely have to check out.
Nous Vous Collective (I know that’s three people right there, but it’s ONE name, that’s what counts!)
What are you working on at the moment?
A hundred things at the same time! And I’m moving house! One thing I’m currently working on is screenprinting my London bike map for an exhibition, Artcrank, which is like a poster party for bike enthusiasts. Check it out, come along – 19th August on Old Street, London. And then I’m also putting together a zine along with Samuele Bastianello. We’re gathering a bunch of extremely talented artists – keep an eye the blog we’ve set up for it.
It’s called The Witness and will have an observational angle to it. I’m also working on getting some time to relax, which isn’t going so well.
this guy is really cool. and i bet he’s good looking too.