He just moved into a new studio, which the painter shares with a photographer pal. Ferguson describes it as looking like “Darth Vader’s summer home,” very clean and newly renovated with black floors, white walls, and black furniture. “It’s the only clean space I’ve ever been in,” he says. The studio is about a half-hour walk from Ferguson’s home, which allows the artist to get in at least an hour’s worth of exercise daily. He typically works from late afternoon to early evening. “At this point, my eyes get all wiggly if I work for more than five hours,” he says. And in a designated studio, he can focus on working, instead of on distractions, like the computer.
As a child, Ferguson’s artistic ambition was to draw a kickass Imperial Stormtrooper from Star Wars. Then he saw Blade Runner and was inspired. “I just wanted to create worlds and stuff like that,” says Ferguson.
Winter is dangerous and you never know when there is going to be a camouflaged worm creature that comes and bites your head off.”
That he does and there’s still a bit of a pop culture influence in the worlds that he creates. “Desmond in Springtime,” with its hirsute merman at the center of the image, was inspired in part by the horror flick Cabin in the Woods. Ferguson’s merman has claws for hands and has just caught his next meal. Blood from a slaughtered fish dissipates in a water world that comes alive with jellies and other creatures filling the scene. Icebergs float in the background of an image that brings together the ocean’s surface with what may be lurking underneath it.
In “Pastoral,” a giant, worm-like monster emerges from the snow, looking a bit like the Dune worm or, as Ferguson describes, a young creature from the Aliens franchise. “It’s kind of a disembodied tube, an evil tube with teeth,” he explains. The monster is about to eat a guy who has fallen in the snow as his steed races off in the background. “There’s always this feeling in winter, especially in Montreal, that you can die out here if you’re not careful,” says Ferguson. “Winter is dangerous and you never know when there is going to be a camouflaged worm creature that comes and bites your head off.”
“Pastoral” was also a breakthrough for Ferguson. “I actually figured out how to paint snow, which I had never really been able to pull off before,” he says. It was a challenge. How do you discern the right shade of white for the light that is hitting the landscape? “I had to collect a hundred paintings of snow,” Ferguson says. Snow also figures prominently in a painting called “Discipline.”
At the center of this piece is a woman dressed in winter Victorian finery. A few locks of red hair tumble over her shoulders as she turns her head and scowls towards the viewer. She has a tight grip on the leash of her pet, a strange creature that resembles an oversized spider. “She’s an asshole,” says Ferguson of the woman in the painting. “She’s taking her insect out for a walk and treating it kind of harshly. She’s not a nice person. Not someone you would want to hang out with.”
Ferguson’s work is largely character driven, and he has a bit of a philosophy about how he develops the fictional people he paints. “Half the time, when I’m painting people, I’m creating people that I really want to be friends with. It’s almost like you’re a friend-creator—this person is going to be my long-lost buddy,” says Ferguson. “Other times, you’re just painting evil people.”
