Emily Graves spoke with street artist Micah Purnell

Micah Purnell

Celebrated Manchester street artist, Micah Purnell, has his latest exhibition of work at The Studio in Prestwich, running from Tuesday 14th May to Saturday 15th June as part of this year's Prestwich Festival.

Earlier this year, Micah - whose work characteristically takes a positive stance on anti-consumerism - challenged himself to create a new piece of artwork in just 40 minutes for each of the 40 days of Lent, inspired by his personal daily reflections.

40 minutes is the fruit of his labour: a series of 40 pieces of graphically produced prints, with the hopeful aim of affirming, igniting, encouraging or challenging your personal stance of the world around you.

Emily: Please start by telling us a bit about yourself.

Micah: Well, my name is Micah Purnell and I'm from Manchester. I studied graphic design and art in Manchester. The work that I produce is a mix of those two things.

Emily: So what does your artwork look like, because it's not like a normal painting is it?

Micah: No it'd probably look more like something you'd see on an advert, except that it wouldn't be selling anything.

Emily: You seem to try to incorporate lots of words into it as well.

Micah: Yes, I've been inspired by a lot of text based artists in the past and present; people like Barbara Kruger who did the, I shop therefore I am, for Selfridges. She's got a great style. I've also been inspired by Jenny Holzer, an American artist. There's a few around that just work with copy, text and quotes and that's what I like to do.

Emily: What is it you love about expressing yourself in this way?

Micah: I don't know. I think that words are powerful I suppose and the words that we speak are powerful; the words that we read are powerful and so I like to play with them. I like to switch them around a little bit and use them to help people think and ignite some sort of inspiration. Also, you see words every moment through advertising; they're carefully designed to get to the core of you, but the bottom of that would be to make you spend. What I do kind of counters that.

Emily: How do you see God in what you're doing?

Micah: I guess at the heart of it is loving one another; that's a big one. It comes through in the heart of the work; the root of it is there.

Emily: Tell us about this exhibition then.