Guests for the Site Specific Illustration season Podcast are mural artists, Neequaye Dreph and Louis Michel, who are well know for impressive mural work that makes a statement. With host, Rachel Emily Taylor.

Our guests discuss how to approach starting murals, the challenges and positive aspects, along with organising and working on Margate’s impressive 18-mural Rise Up environmental project.

Site Specific Season Illustration by Alberto Casagrande

Find out the backgrounds of our podcast guests and host below, and listen above or search Inside Illustration on Spotify, Apple or where you find your podcasts.

Neequaye Dreph Dsane, Artist, Illustrator & Muralist

Neequaye Dreph is a visual artist working across a wide range of media. With a focus on portraiture and painting the human figure, Dreph’s subjects are everyday people, friends, family or those he meets whilst painting in the streets. With exploration of colour and an attention to sartorial detail, he uses his work to tell his subjects stories.

He is inspired, as much by 80s British sci-fi comics and New York subway art, as he is the old masters. Dreph is passionate about the cultural and creative exchange that can be shared whilst travelling and this has profoundly informed his practice. After three decades of street based painting, Dreph’s work can be found in Asia, Africa, the UAE, Central, South and North America and throughout Europe.

Dreph is an Illustration lecturer at Portsmouth University. He lives and works in London

Rise Up mural on rising tides, Margate, Neequaye Dreph Dsane
NHS Blood & Transplant mural of five inspiring blood donors campaign aims to raise awareness of the prevalence of sickle cell disease in the UK, Eastenders set mural, Neequaye Dreph Dsane

Louis Michel, Artist, Illustrator & Muralist

Louis (Masai) Michel is a UK-based painter, sculptor and muralist. He uses his art in the form of murals, paintings and installations as a way to highlight the 6th mass extinction, climate change and species equality.

The subject or species, is created in the style and empathy of a cuddly plush toy, thus highlighting that if one doesn’t preserve the existence of the species depicted, only toys and souvenirs will remain. Within the composition of the species are intricate details exploring cultural fabrics, popular culture and elements of conservation. When these paintings become murals, they also become awareness campaigns, speaking to the local community, highlighting biodiversity collapse, giving a voice to the voiceless. ONE LOVE .

Rise Up Residency Margate, Local spotted catshark trapped in plastic bottle in ocean seaweed, Louis Michel. Photo by Ian Cox
Stop dumping trash in the ocean, New Rochelle New York, Louis Michel. Photo by Just a Spectator

Dr Rachel Emily Taylor, podcast host

Rachel is the Course Leader of BA Illustration at Camberwell College of Arts. She has undertaken residencies at the Foundling Museum, the Bronte Parsonage Museum, Bowes Museum, and the Horniman Museum.

Her research explores how illustration practice might communicate the historical person’s ‘voice’ and examines the value of multiple voices in the museum.

Listen to and find more information on the Editorial Season podcast here.