Beatnik (Graeme Mckim) has always loved to draw, but as a boy he really had no artistic intentions. He took art as merely a means to an end, a way of creating fantasy worlds usually full of spaceships and monsters in which to have adventures. He would throw them away as soon as he had finished, embarrassed by his creations. Despite this, his drawing abilities were noted by his teachers and a career as an artist began and blossomed when other kids wanted to buy his artwork. He never intend to be an artist, he wanted be a scientist – but alas, it meant he had to do math. Graeme Mckim ended up studying illustration and graphic design at Underdale College in South Australia. He received a good grounding in history of art and design and his influences broadened. Graeme Mckim’s taste in art tended to be towards the early to mid-20th century –with movements like abstract expressionism and cubism and painters like Miro, Klee and Picasso.
He also loved the mid-century commercial art – from magazine illustration and voluptuous, colorful advertising to the jazzy, angular cartoon art and design which was influenced by Klee, Miro, Picasso such as the illustrators Jim Flora and the typographer Saul Bass and Mary Blair. The subject matter of his paintings was also inspired by the mid-century pop culture that was broadcast in his lounge room via television re-runs - The Twilight Zone, The camp classic Batman, Dobie Gillis, sci-fi, Thunderbird, Lost in Space, among others. He was also involved from his youth with various retro youth culture movements from rockabilly to the mod revival and the tiki scene and lounge music.
