In 2010 at Ladyfest Ten, Art Macabre was born; a theatrical and immersive salon that holds deathly drawing classes (DISCLAIMER: they’re not actually dangerous) celebrating the macabre. Five years on and they’re branching out with a new collaboration with the Historic Royal Palaces, which sees them use their unique style to bleed out the stories of iconic locations of the past.  

This November they’re launching Drawn at the Tower, a programme of drawing events that will explore the diverse stories and tales of the Tower of London, drawing upon 1000 years of history and the multiple roles at the centre of the city. On the 24^th November participants will have the opportunity to sketch two costumed and nude figures in the Medieval Palace and Wakefield Tower, including the bedchamber.

Next year eager sketchers can look forward to opportunities to draw the ravens up close and explore the legend of these famous birds with the Raven Master; explore the theme of dark arts and the history of those accused witchcraft; create their own prints inspired by the prisoner graffiti and marks made on the towers’ walls; create art inspired by the armouries collections and draw from life a menagerie of live lizards and reptiles inspired by the Tower’s royal bestiary and zoo of the past.

We talk to Art Macabre founder and curator Nikki Shaill about how she’s inviting participants to enter the place where many feared to tread, pick up an artistic weapon of choice and discover that the pencil is mightier than the sword.

Run Riot: Can you tell us a little bit more about how Art Macabre came to life?

Nikki Shaill: I started running life drawing events quite by chance, as part of a small team of volunteers organising them as fundraisers for a DIY arts festival we were organising called Ladyfest Ten. Back then the life drawing events didn’t focus on the macabre themes we are now renowned for- they were body-positive, queer and feminist themed mostly. But after a Halloween special proved really popular, we responded to audience demand for more skull-themed scenes and started exploring darker themes through the events’ tableaux and narratives.

Up to now, Art Macabre events have mainly focussed on using life drawing to explore themes of death, dying and the body, which has proved an even more rich and inspiring theme than I could have imagined when we began. Rather than being morbid or depressing, as some people might assume, I’ve found that looking at death (real mortality as well as fantastical representations) is actually very positive, enriching and beautifully fascinating. I feel like we’re still only scratching the surface of these topics and my list of future event ideas and research continues to grow. Death is the theme that keeps on giving!

Run Riot: You curate each Art Macabre event through a range of inspirations from film noir to folk rituals, where do you find these and do you have any overarching inspirations?

Nikki Shaill: My inspiration might be delving into the death rituals of different cultures and researching into myth and folklore across the world, or looking at how death has been personified throughout different historical periods of art and literature, or remembering how dark and twisted fairytales actually are by looking at the original tellings. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t find something to add to the ideas bank for Art Macabre, whether watching TV, visiting a museum, or simply walking around London. Inspiration is everywhere and my brain never switches off!

I really recommend visiting the Wellcome Collection Reading Room for anyone interested in researching into these sorts of themes - from anatomical Venuses to Mexico’s Santa Muerte, grave robbing to post-mortem photography. It’s free and a lovely place to be inspired by their books, artwork and drop-in events.

After five years of focussing primarily on the darker side of life, Art Macabre is also extending into more colourful and wider territory through our events too which I am really looking forward to.

Acknowledging our roots in LGBTQ and sub-cultures, our new Colourdrome series will be a bit brighter and themed around a different colour each month. So we’re launching with an ode to all things pink on Wednesday (11th), with the brilliantly queen of queer and filthy femme TeTe Bang posing nude by neons at Lights of Soho which should be lots of fun! Then we explore the theme of Red in December on World Aids Day. Art Macabre is going kaleidoscopic in our palette of cultural references!

Drawn at the Tower will also develop on a new direction for Art Macabre, exploring not just deathly tales of the Tower’s history and not purely figurative drawing subjects, but also the scandalous romances between royals and rogues, the mythology of the ravens, the history of the royal menagerie of beasts and the beauty of the armoury and jewels in the collections there. Though don’t get us wrong, there will be a little bit of the more macabre side of things thrown in the mix! We won’t be able to resist exploring a touch of execution and acknowledging the hundreds of skeletons that lie beneath the grounds. Who knows what ghosts might emerge during the monthly events at the Tower after-hours to inspire our sketches and share their secrets? It’s a thrilling place to be exploring through drawing and be able to open up to London after-dark…

Run Riot: How does Art Macabre use drawing to explore stories? What theatrical and immersive elements do your salons entail?

Nikki Shaill: At each Art Macabre event, whether they are held in a basement bar or one of London’s biggest museums, we always try to bring the tableaux and subjects to be drawn to life by engaging multiple senses. As well as costumed and nude models, theatrical sets and props, we have narrative and storytelling, dramatic lighting, specially selected soundtracks and sometimes even elements of fragrance, things to taste or touch, and add to the experience of immersing you in the mood and atmosphere. I want participants to be transported, providing a springboard at the events for their imaginations to run wild.

Run Riot: How is the Drawn in the Tower series a departure from your previous death drawing salons?

Nikki Shaill: With our other events we have always said that we’re injecting a lethal dose of theatricality and fun back into drawing. This new series marks a fresh development for us, in that the events won’t just focus on the themes of death at the Tower but also draw upon other dramatic, diverse and dark elements to the Tower’s history. Romance, intrigue, black magic, beasts and political prisoners.

We pioneered this approach to exploring bringing history and heritage of a place through drawing at Somerset House a couple of years ago- with an event underground in their Deadhouse tunnels that allowed participants to encounter and draw multiple monarchs who introduced masques to London and illuminating this lesser-known history of Somerset House through the event. It made me realise that drawing events, like immersive theatre, can re-visit London’s hidden histories and real stories as inspiration and subjects to explore. And doing so actually in situ at these historic spaces makes it especially powerful.

I’ve wanted to be able to hold Art Macabre events at Historic Royal Palaces sites for a while now – it’s a dream venue, really - so to be successful in my proposal to Tower of London’s call out for participatory drawing event ideas was very exciting.

I’ve really enjoyed researching into the roles the Tower of London and learning more about this iconic London landmark. There’s so much rich history to choose from, as you’d imagine. It has not just served as a powerful prison and place of torture. It was also a royal palace and fortress. A home to London’s first zoo allowing artists to record what elephants and lions actually looked like accurately. And the chapel is still to this day a parish church- my friends actually got married in the Chapel and have had both their children christened there recently, over the spot where Anne Boleyn and countless others are buried!

Run Riot: Art Macabre turns five this year. What did you do to celebrate your birthday?

Nikki Shaill: Our actual anniversary was on Halloween night itself, so we threw a special party to celebrate five years. We had a spectacular model called Arran Shurvinton pose as a an uncannily convincing Nosferatu, a DJ playing spooky tunes to dance to afterwards and then held our after-party amongst the taxidermy tigers of King’s Head Members Club. There were some fantastically costumed guests- watching werewolves and zombies drawing away made me very happy!

Over our birthday weekend we also held big drop-in drawing events at British Museum, Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and RA so I calculated we had over a thousand people drawing with us. A perfect way to celebrate! The thought of how many pencils and pieces of paper we must have got through over the last few years makes me feel rather happy. I can’t wait to see what artwork the new ventures of Drawn at the Tower and Colourdrome series will create.

Run Riot: With the rise of conceptual art marksmanship seems to be a technique that is dying out in contemporary arts training. How important is it that we train ourselves in the ‘art of looking’?

Nikki Shaill: More and more I feel that we’re all guilty of not taking time to stop and look, really look, at the things we encounter before reaching for our phones to try and capture them digitally. It makes me sad when I’m at an exhibition or museum and I see people moving around what they see so quickly, cataloguing it through their phone camera lens, without even taking a moment to stand and engage with what is in front of them before doing so.

I’m as guilty of it as the next person – being tempted to engage in an almost reflex-like reaction to seeing something interesting/unusual/beautiful/curious and reaching for my phone to snap it and share it on Instagram or Twitter, before I’ve barely had time to actually explore it myself properly and reflect on it in reality first. But I find that when I keep my phone in my pocket and take time to really look, and especially to then explore what I see through interpreting in notes or sketches, it is so much more pleasurable and memorable.

I didn’t go to art school myself but I had always enjoyed drawing and doodling since being a child. However as I’ve got older, I got out of the habit of drawing as frequently or freely, losing confidence as my drawing skills weren’t as refined as the ‘professional illustrators and proper artists’ I admired.

When I started to discover the potential of theatrical, relaxed drawing events, I really enjoyed rediscovering the simple joy of putting pen to paper at these events. Remembering how fun and engaging it can be to enjoy doodling, scribbling, smudging and experimenting with drawing – without the fear of a teacher/onlooker judging what you create. We’ll have tutors on hand to guide and inspire at Drawn at the Tower, but by no means judge or assess what participants create.

I believe that everyone can enjoy drawing, given the right inspiration and supportive environment. It’s the biggest thrill to hear people come to our events, saying that they ‘can’t draw’ or that they haven’t drawn since school as a teacher told them they weren’t any good at it, but by the end of the evening comment how much they enjoyed re-engaging with the art of mark making and how relaxing they found it.

The growing number and variety of drawing events across London, and the demand for more by audiences, is testament to the fact that rather than a dying art, drawing is thriving as more people seek a way to reconnect with what they see and be creative in a physical way.

Art Macabre: Nudes and Neons at Ligths of Soho

11 November

Art Macabre: Drawn at the Tower at the Tower of London

24 November