Dave McKean: 9 Lives

In a UK premiere live performance, artist Dave McKean and fellow musicians including Iain Ballamy present a his sequence of original songs and stories accompanied by a collection of images, film clips and animation.

Arguably the most prolific graphic artist of the past 50 years, Dave McKean is a multi-disciplinary genius who spans comics, illustration and design for print and online, animation, film-directing, installation, music, performance and more. He illustrated the most successful graphic novel of all time, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Richard Dawkins's The Magic of Reality, designed over 150 album covers (Rolling Stones, John Cale, Tori Amos, Counting Crows, Dream Theatre, Fear Factory) and created the magical beasts of two Harry Potter films.

Yet McKean is maybe still best known for his long and life-changing partnership with Neil Gaiman – conjuring the darkly comic, multi-award winning novella Coraline and the dream-weaving covers for The Sandman, Violent Cases and Black Orchid and the Jim Henson-produced fantasy film MirrorMask – a motion graphic trailblazer in the realm of ’80s classics The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. He has also designed the British Library exhibition Comics Unmasked.