Interview with Out-Of-This-World Artist MONARX aka Shamis McGillin

Arts

Nov 21

Written By Nicholas Goodly

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The following interview originally appeared in WUSSY vol.06 print edition. To order your copy, click here.

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Shamis McGillin is a shapeshifter from the future.

He possesses the ability to morph his face, body and subjects into futuristic art through his lens. He combines his skills as a makeup artist, photographer, retoucher, and art director, to create out-of-this-world conceptual visual art. His images are glitched and collaged into existence, humming with energy, while his styling is reminiscent of 80's New York when hand-crafted sculpture became wearable and innovation was en vogue.

MONARX is the creation of Shamis, crafted with club-kid ingenuity and high fashion execution, MONARX is bizarre, otherworldly and a living piece of art. Like any living thing, Shamis' work changes and grows, the lines between mediums are stretched and blurred, and through it all, we see a vision of what the evolution of art and fashion could look like. We spoke to Shamis about his work, the birth of MONARX, and the influence of the queen Janelle Monae.

What is your relationship between your persona MONARX and yourself as Shamis, the individual?

I am the artist and MONARX is my creation and a vessel for me to explore identity. MONARX isn’t a character, it’s more of a space that I’ve allowed myself to take up and create something meaningful to me. This space isn’t always where I want to be, because it forces me to face the unknown things like ego and the soul, but I want to grow and MONARX forces me do just that.

In your work as a photographer, art director and as MONARX there is a sense of the subject as alien, otherworldly and beyond human. Why do these characteristics persist throughout your work in various mediums?

Aliens as a concept are entities I look up to and hope to see in my lifetime because if they exist, they challenge everything we know about ourselves, our place in the universe, and our origins. I think being in my early 20s I’m constantly in existential crisis of “this can’t be all that there is”. Playing with otherworldly aesthetics is my way of challenging the idea that the world has to always be the way that is is.

MONARX exists in the real world as a nightlife club kid, but a lot of your work is captured through photography and digital images. Do you find any challenges or advantages working through mostly visual mediums?

I started working in nightlife when I was underage. It was a great space at the time to explore my identity as a queer person as nightclubs have sometimes been the only “safe” zone for LGBTQ to explore identity. I quit working in those spaces because my body and mind were violated and I didn’t control the space. In my studio and through digital imagery, I get to have a say in everything I do and no one can touch me. Creating editorials hopefully resonates more than photos of me with a drink in my hand.

Your use of materials and textures for your looks is fascinating, resourceful and shows inventiveness that sets you apart as an artist. Where does that come from?

I’m a cancer, I don’t come from a lot of money, and it’s important to me to have a safety net than spend all I have if I can help it. I didn’t have any money when I started out, so I really had to just see what people were throwing away, get out the hot glue gun and cross my fingers that it didn’t fall apart until after I got in my Uber home. Even with more resources now I love to incorporate materials that are absurd because I think it’s an extension of my challenge to reality and utilitarianism.

Who are some of your biggest influences in any medium?

Janelle Monae. If I didn’t have her music and visuals when I was in high school, I would have been lost. I’ve never seen an artist create such an expansive sonic and visual world while being an activist constantly challenging the her own reality in such an authentic way. She’s also a fan of futurism and sci-Fi so I feel connected to her through that naturally.

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For more info and work by MONARX, click here.

Nicholas Goodly is the writing editor of Wussy Magazine.

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