Michael Mcdonnell
Berlin, Germany – Instagram
Techno culture is the heartbeat of Berlin. The phrase “Berlin or Bust” is about just going for the Berlin lifestyle 100% and giving it your all no matter what. The artist interprets this as a metaphor through Raving hard to minimal Techno in Berghain, which has sadly had to transition to Hasenheide park due to the corona pandemic. The artist references various other things which are of importance to him and make up a big part of the soul of Berlin, such as cycling, skateboarding, and Falafel.
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Michael Mcdonnell is a Berlin-based Illustrative artist originally from Liverpool, England. His works are based, around hand-drawn lettering combined with various playful illustrations and character designs. Some of the artist’s main inspirations come from advertisements from the 1950s and 60s. The artist likes the clean and minimalist style as well as the feeling of optimism from this era. Street Art and the quirkiness of European branding and logo styles are other influences within the artist’s works, as well as the idea of showing a hand-drawn aesthetic and off-key style rather than something too sharp and clean. Street-life, Subculture, Music, Fashion, Skateboarding and Cycle culture (Fixie/Track bike) are further, things that inspire the artist in giving his analysis of the current state of affairs and opinions or ideas about the Zeitgeist as a whole. The artist likes to work with a combination of wordplay and humor within his works, to comment on social attitudes and behavior within different subcultures/movements and societies. Through putting words together to make a sort of prose/rap and highlighting letters within these words to create brand-new phrases. In turn, this should inspire people to look deeper into the works and come up with different ideas or feelings than what is at first readable and visible.
