Creative career stories: Illustrator and comic artist, Pris Lemons
Originally from the Cayman Islands, Pris Lemons recently graduated with a degree in Illustration from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. Working with everything from Photoshop and Blender to pencils and plasticine, they use illustration as a way of visualising LGBTQ+ experiences and mental health stories. This is Pris’s story…
An artistic childhood
I was always known as an artistic child. I would steal lots of printer paper, lay it out on the floor and just draw with whatever I had. My family were all very supportive of my creativity, and my mum put me into art classes from an early age. I would always get bored in these classes, though, as they felt too academic and I didn’t get to do the things I enjoyed, such as comics. I was stubborn and just wanted to do my own thing. As a kid, I had it in my mind that when I grew up, I would learn Japanese, move to Japan and be a Manga artist.
Where I’m from, the main option for working as a creative is to become a seascape painter, because that’s what tourists want to buy when they visit Cayman. Being a children’s book illustrator or an animator wasn’t seen as a useful career path, and while there were some well-known abstract artists, they had all had to move away to become successful. Things are changing now, and there is even a film school opening up back home, which is something I never thought would happen.
Moving to Dundee
The school that I went to in Cayman put pressure on us to go straight to university in America. I’m a UK citizen (through my mother being from Dunblane and being born on a colony), so moving to Britain just made more sense. Plus, I liked the idea of it being less hot all the time (although the cold months are not something I look forward to anymore!). I had read an article suggesting that Scotland was the most gay-accepting place in the world at the time, so I dropped out of high school and applied to study over here. Within a few months, I was moving to Scotland!
When I came to Dundee, I started studying Computer Arts at college. The course focused on the basics of Photoshop, which I already knew, so I moved over to Contemporary Arts practice instead. Fine art courses don’t want to see Anime and Manga, which were my main influences at the time, so this forced me outside of my comfort zone. During the course, I was introduced to the work of Grayson Perry. Seeing him doing all these quirky pieces and going places in drag made me think more about what it means to be a queer artist.
“Being surrounded by people who are creative and strange like me is the dream I had as a child. If a queer kid out there happens to see my work, I hope it lets them know that there is a place for them too.”
- Pris Lemons
After college, I went back to my roots to study Illustration at Duncan Of Jordanstone. There were quite a few people at art school who dressed oddly and I was one of them. Even if I didn’t get to know them, just knowing that they existed was encouraging. With my work, however, I was still asking “How gay can I be?”. I started seeing other students expressing queerness through their art, and this made me a bit more rebellious. I realised that the tutors would give feedback on my work regardless of the subject matter.
Embracing my queerness
I really like the life that I have made for myself in Dundee. Being surrounded by people who are creative and strange like me is the dream I had as a child. If a queer kid out there happens to see my work, I hope it lets them know that there is a place for them too. There were times when I was younger when I was scared that I wouldn’t have the same opportunities as other people because of my sexuality or my gender; the combination of things that make me feel “other” from somebody else. It limited what I thought I could do and what my place was.
The narrative in my head of “you don’t belong somewhere because of your queerness” was immediately challenged by being around people who were like me. I felt like I belonged with them and that we belonged in this space. I got to enjoy the things in life that I missed out on when I was younger. My friends encourage me to express myself freely and queerly. Now that I have graduated, I am excited to collaborate and make work that highlights the people who gave me the good feelings I have about myself now.
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