Filthyratbag's work is unnerving, familiar and funny.
In one drawing, a rat is curled up and dying — the animal and the words above it (in Filthyratbag's signature all-caps writing) rendered in red texta: EVEN MY DYING THOUGHTS WERE EMBARRASING [sic].
Elsewhere, a tableau of dog-human hybrids are depicted in significant life events — marriage, graduation, parenting — with the headline: DO DOGS REMINISCE?
Scroll further down Filthyratbag's Instagram feed and you'll see a post with a tense-looking leopard, who reveals: I'M REALLY STRUGGLING AT THE MOMENT.
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Filthyratbag — real name Celeste Mountjoy — started posting these illustrated observations on Instagram when she was just 15 years old, and in the past five years, she's amassed a following on that platform of 392,000 and counting.
Mountjoy has grown up online, her work changing and maturing as she has.
"It's very strange, having your ageing process be that public," she says.
The birth of Filthyratbag
Mountjoy told RN's The Art Show that she was interested in storytelling from a young age, filling countless notebooks with drawings and writing.
Her earliest notebook is from when she was four years old.
"I used to draw heaps of stuff in that book, and then I'd get my mum to sit down with me and I'd dictate to her what I wanted the writing to be," she recalls.
That evolved into making comics, which she started uploading to the internet under the name Filthyratbag.
"I remember thinking that it would be easier or less vulnerable to have a non-gendered, non-name name."
Her work quickly attracted attention, and she was profiled in Dazed Magazine.
"It was a fantastic thing to be validated for your art, especially at that age," Mountjoy says.
Despite that, she found herself enjoying the conversations she was having with followers and much of the feedback she was receiving.
"It all began to make me feel a bit less alone and scared," the artist says.
'Laughing through the pain'
Filthyratbag's posts also attracted negative feedback — especially her early work that touched on feminist issues.
"[The work was about] stuff that I was facing as a young girl because obviously, being a woman, that's just something that you have to deal with, being treated like crap a lot of the time," says Mountjoy.
The illustrator says these posts would lead to comments with "a lot of hate towards women, and hatred towards me expressing myself as a woman".
"A lot of the internet … can't deal with feminist issues or talking about that kind of thing. It seems to really get on people's nerves."
But she responds to these criticisms with laughter.
"It wouldn't matter what I was making, people would find something to be upset about or to dislike, and that's fine," says Mountjoy.
Coming to terms with womanhood
"When I was a kid, I remember being really obsessed with drawing stunning women … beautiful princesses and mermaids," Mountjoy recalls.
That changed as she got older.
"I realised that the image that I had in my head of what a beautiful or perfect or normal, even, woman was, was pretty far off how it actually felt to be a woman," Mountjoy says.
"And so I remember actively starting to morph my female illustrations into something that was, I guess, not as objectively hot or beautiful."
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The results are drawings of women with body hair and saggy boobs, as well as human-animal hybrids.
"It was kind of my way of accepting my womanhood, by changing how I was creating."
Over time, Filthyratbag's work has evolved from comic strips into poetic observations about sexism, body image, societal expectations and insecurities.
Mental health is a theme throughout her work — particularly anxiety, which is something she's lived with since childhood.
"From a really young age, I remember feeling like emotions were almost far too intense to even live with," she says.
"I think that being able to jot it all down and draw it and turn it into something a bit more funny or self-aware or cute was very therapeutic for me."
Mountjoy calls her art "self-indulgent".
'Instant gratification art'
Mountjoy says drawing is her favourite activity.
"It's not calming, it's exciting … I'm sure that anyone who cooks or makes music or any anything that can come out of you [knows how it] makes you feel validated as a human."
There's an urgency to each of her drawings, which are done using textas and fineliners.
"I've always called it 'instant gratification art', because it's just [using] anything that you can grab, any type of pen — and you can just smash it out," she says.
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Mountjoy has always worked from home, so COVID-19 hasn't impacted on that aspect of her life, but she says it's been difficult to find inspiration for her work during the pandemic.
"A lot of my art is about some kind of personal crisis or internal struggle; it feels almost pointless to be complaining when there's a real crisis," she says.
She admits there is validity in exploring the personal griefs wrought by the pandemic; she's just not sure what Filthyratbag has to say — yet.
"The nature of grief is that there's always something left to feel, but when I try and maybe have a go untangling it, it all just boils down to the same thing in the end: things are bad, and that's the only conclusion that I can come to."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA4LTE2L2ZpbHRoeXJhdGJhZy1jZWxlc3RlLW1vdW50am95LWF1c3RyYWxpYW4tYXJ0aXN0LWluc3RhZ3JhbS8xMjU1MTA1MNIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjU1MTA1MA?oc=5
2020-08-15 20:57:00Z
CAIiELhyK_VwuVc7-nXE0fN5-ZQqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3vI9MPeaCDDc2g4
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