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Florence Hutchings Prints

Wine glass and a fruit bowl on a table mat A bookcase in front of windowsbananas in a fruit bowltwo vases on a shelftwo chairs in the living room

The private view for Florence Hutchings’ current show with us was incredible, with all of the paintings selling out in the first 45 minutes! We have a limited number of these exquisite fine art prints still available for any of you who missed out on getting a painting.

Each print is a limited edition run of 5 prints, which are supplied with certificate of authenticity to provide limited edition provenance. They are 30 x 40 cm / 12″ x 16″ including a small white border for easy framing, and are archival Giclée prints with an archival lifespan of up to 200 years.

Presented on Hahnemühle Photo Rag premium Fine Art paper with a slightly off white, matt finish paper with guaranteed archival properties. The paper gives muted blacks with even colour reproduction, and excellent detail. It has a minimal texture and a chalky smooth cotton feel which creates smooth colour gradients.

Each are editions of five, with only a couple at most still remaining of each.

You can find them HERE

 

Kim Dorland – Terror Management Theory

One of our favourite galleries Beers Contemporary is soon to present Terror Management Theory from one of our favourite artists Kim Dorland. The details can be found below.
For his first solo show at Beers London, Canadian artist Kim Dorland presents ‘Terror Management Theory’, wherein the artist offers a modern-day reimagining of the concept of Memento Mori.

Dorland has long explored the concept of Memento Mori, which, when translated from Latin, means ‘remember that you have to die’, and represents one of the longest standing conventions in the history of art-making. In early history, Romans of the Stoic school of Philosophy pronounced the need to face death in a steadfast manner: ‘Death smiles at us all,’ wrote Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius before his death in the year 180 AD, ‘all we can do is smile back.’  Art history traces various religious beliefs and the paintings that accompanied myriad historical periods as reminders of the need to eschew earthly pursuits and work towards living a Godly life. This fascination with death can be traced back to as recently as the Victorians, whose Memento Mori photographs depicted the living posed next to bodies of deceased family members, like morbid curios of a bygone era.

It is a way of thinking that seems to have been lost on most western cultures in recent times. For Kim Dorland, ‘Terror Management Theory’ is a contemporary reimagining of Memento Mori: ‘a psychological theory,’ he states, ‘about being confronted with the knowledge of our death, and how that makes us act and think… it has been very much on my mind these days that the state we’re in on so many different fronts (environment, politics) is pretty ominous.’ 

Perhaps as humans we have always felt we were living near the proverbial ‘end times’. The Great War, World War II, the Cold War – all modern-world examples where humanity seemed to lie under a proverbial Sword of Damocles*, its future tentative and uncertain. And Dorland’s work has always housed a sort of unease, eeriness, or looming sense of danger – even when at his most playful. This tendency towards normalisation in the face of such world-changing events – is it testament to mankind’s resilience or naivety? Art has always reacted to its social and political context, and it seems that Dorland is responding as such:

‘The show is my imagined extrapolation of that theme – obvious portentous signs that are a bit more dramatic – but not that far off,’ he says, ‘an imagined “how far do things have to go before we notice or act?” It’s not meant to be an overtly political or “statement” show, but it’s definitely what’s on my mind these days. I don’t think there’s any way to avoid it.’
Certainly, Dorland’s trademark subject matter is once again at play: solitary figures in nighttime forests, owls gazing ominously back at the viewer, self-portraits laced with visceral ‘blobs’ of impasto paint. But there is also a playfulness in both his approach and his titling: Plein Air Painter replaces that ominously shadowy figure in the woods with another tradition in painting: the open air painter, an approach favoured by the Modernists as they watched the changing of the daylight and seasons. In Self Portrait at 44, the artist wryly mentions his age as another subtle, albeit humorous, reminder of one’s own morbitity. Have a Nice Day is perhaps the most outwardly tongue-in-cheek, referencing the currently topical ‘plastic-crisis’, the fragility of life, and the entrapments of life in a single, rather banal image. There are (not so) subtle allusions to zombification, biohazards, teenage posses, a vampire (or two), as well as a few other horror-movie clichés thrown in (haunting sunset, long-haired girl), and of course, a couple of traditional Memento Mori scenes: a skull bursting with flowers, one bright blue, and one starkly black. These two stand in as metonym for all of Dorland’s practice: at once haunting, simultaneously overabundant expressions of some sort of mania, be it gleeful or haunting, situated between extremes: the sheer rapture of artistic expression…life, and – of course – death.

Damocles is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote commonly referred to as “the Sword of Damocles”, an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. Wikipedia

***
Kim Dorland’s works remind us of the power of nature and the impact that humanity has upon our environment. His paintings are typically inspired by the landscapes of his native Canada, as well as more traditional landscape painting and portraiture such as that explored through Tom Thomson, of Canada’s famed Group of Seven who painted in the early 20th Century. But what is perhaps most indicative of Dorland’s trademark style is a seemingly post-punk aesthetic: like glowing embers from a fading campfire, Dorland’s tableaux suggests the harsh burn-out of a long party, a suburban riot, or a torrid affair. Through their use of bright colours and thickly impasto paint, Dorland’s scenes often depict a relatively tongue-in-cheek idea of modern life versus nature: graffiti-ridden walls, bridges encroaching into the wilderness, sunrise in suburbia littered with beer bottles, or trunks of trees with expletives ‘carved’ into their bark with paint. Certainly, there is a sinister undertone to his perspective, but they are presented and levied by their sense of humor and apparent irreverence. Even his figurative work operates similarly, where portraits of friends or family members emerge almost conceptually: often through a vigorously applied mountain of paint, as though the paint were a type of metonym or stand-in for memories. Other times, faces are ghostly, shadowed or obscured behind hoods and blankets. Applying paint in a fevered, immediate manner, Dorland uses a combination of flattened acrylic grounds layered with viscerally and liberally applied oils. Lately, his approach combines ‘digital painting’ with his instantly recognizable style. These are paintings that prefer to elevate their medium – as opposed to their subject matter: Dorland has alluded to celebrated painter Frank Auerbach as a pivotal, early influence, stating he’d “never seen anything like it, the way the material looked and felt. It was sort of icky’. Like Auerbach, Dorland paints his subjects with a sense of freedom from traditional representation combined with an unsettling, almost violent immediacy. Like Auerbach, it seems to provide – for both artist and viewer – a method of exploring humanity and the uncanny while simultaneously keeping it at a curious psychological distance.

KIM DORLAND (b. 1974, Alberta, Canada) lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. He graduated with an MFA from York University, Toronto, in 2013, and a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, in 1998. Solo Exhibitions include: ‘Same Old Future’. Arsenal Contemporary, New York City (2018); ‘Nemophilia’, Equinox Gallery, Vancouver (2017); ‘Get Out’, Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, Montreal (2017); and ‘I know that I know Nothing’, Angell Gallery, Toronto (2016). Group exhibitions include: ‘Aidas Bareikis, Kim Dorland & Bill Saylor’, Mier Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); and ‘Major Works’, Equinox Gallery, Vancouver (2016). Dorland was the Globe and Mail’s ‘Artist of the Year 2013’. His works can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of Alberta, Musée D’art Contemporain De Montréal, The Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Richard Prince Collection, the Taschen Collection and The Contemporary Art Foundation in Japan. Dorland’s first group exhibition with BEERS London was in ‘O Canada!’ (2017). He will have his first solo exhibition with BEERS London in September 2018, entitled, ‘Terror Management Theory’.

Claus Busch Risvig Interview

 

How do you select a piece for your collection, is it a case of choosing an artist to collect, or choosing a piece that fits in with the aesthetic of the rest of your collection?

It’s about following in love with a piece, we dont have any specific strategy on how to select works for our collection.

Does your collection have a certain aesthetic, or do you predominantly collect a certain style of work?

I think our collection is quite eclectic, is more about adding works that we love then accuire a certain style of work. But we have a lot of paintings so that could be a theme even though we would like to add other types of media in the future.

Collectors can have quite a big influence over an artists career, do you feel that this is a big responsibility or do you try not to think about it

Sure I think about it, and I try to help the artists i collect in the Best way i can.

Oli Epp

What are your opinions on collectors selling the works they own, and how do you think is the best way for them to go about doing so in a conscientious way?

I don’t have a problem with people Selling the things the own, the only thing I dont like is when they flip young artist for a quick profit, for me thats not collecting. It’s really hard for me to say what the best way to sell is as i almost never sell anything, but I think when you sell something you should have in mind that i shouldn’t harm the artist in any way.

Richie Culver

What advice would you give to young artists in relation to being collectible/ getting their work in the right collections?

I think the best way to get into the right collections is to work with a good Gallery that is able to place the work in the right places, they already now who the good collectors are, which can be hard to know when your a young artist.

With the dawn of social media, do you think it’s possible for an artist to go it alone, outside of the gallery system?

Of course it is and I think you can have good succes in doing that, but I also think you’ll have a hard time to get your work into institutional shows and collections without having a Gallery backing you, but maybe that will change in the future.

What galleries are doing exciting things for you at the moment

Galleri Jacob Bjørn is doing great shows and think his next show with Graham Wilson is gonna be awesome, I also really enjoy the programm of Rolando Anselmi who also represents one of my favorite artists Asger Dybvad Larsen.

The young Gallery Gether Contemporary in Copenhagen is also doing some great shows and is a Gallery a have a close eye on.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to start a collection?

See a lot of shows both at galleries and museums and read books so you get a sense of the art historie and maybe start out with buying some prints its an affordable to start out collecting. And you should not be afraid of making mistakes It’s a part of collecting and often will help you make better decisions in the future.

And finally, what artists do you think are going to be making big waves in the future?

Haha that’s a tough question! I’m really not into speculating in these things, but I think you should keep an eye out for British artist like Oli Epp, Richie Culver and Liam Fallon I personally think they are gonna do great things in the future.

 

Photos courtesy of the Bech Risvig Collection and the Artist

Florence Hutchings Interview

Florence Hutchings is one of our favourite artists here at Delphian Gallery, and we were thrilled when she entered our Open Call exhibition in the spring. She then went on to win the competition, and as a result has her first ever solo show ‘Seating Arrangement’ opening with us on September 6th.

Benjamin Murphy sat down with her recently to ask her a little about her work, and what she has in store for us.

Further details about the show and private view can be found at the bottom.

How do you deal with success at such an early stage in your career?

I would say that the idea of success for me right now is a weird thing, for me success isnt selling a painting (or not), or getting it into the show, it’s the way you feel when you leave the studio at the end of the day. For me 8/10 times I probably leave the studio feeling frustrated at not making what I envisaged. The success for me comes on those 2/10 days when I feel like I’ve resolved something, it’s almost like an ecstatic buzz feeling which was so worth all the frustration.

Yeah my studio time is often as frustrating. I suppose what I mean is, I know that if I’d have been as successful as you (both in terms of sales and shows) when I was still studying, I would not have dealt with it well. How do you stay grounded and not the egomaniac I know I would have become?

Hahah, I suppose I’m surrounded by lots of people who inspire me and who i look up to, they’re probably the people keeping me grounded.
On top of that although I greatly appreciate all the opportunities and experiences I’ve gained from my art I don’t think it would ever really change me as a person.
I know when I was a student my style, direction, and intentions changed often and drastically, and I think obscurity allows an artist to change as is their will, whereas notability curtails this. Do you still feel free to change directions if you ever chose to?
Yes for sure- change is often important in my work. I tend to work on a theme at one time and get completely obsessed by it, for instance within this show the motif of chairs appear in most of the works. However although these all have a similar subject matter I try to approach each piece with a new attack – it’s what keeps the process exciting for me. That’s why just over these recent works from the show I have used: oil paint, acrylic and spray paint (for the first time), collage, paper works, canvas works, pieces which are massive and pieces that are really small. I tend to paint whatever I feel like as well, nothing really constricts me – I’ve painted cars, shop fronts, clothes rails, fruit markets, the every day interior and so on. It’s when I start to repeat the way I approach a painting that I know I’m doing something wrong and instantly try to change things up.
Why do you have such an affinity for painting the everyday, and how are you able to imbue ordinary objects with the significance that you do?
I love painting the everyday – I suppose that stems from drawing from life, as most of my paintings are references from lots of drawings. I tend to draw in my flat and rarely in the studio which I suppose is why the interior comes into so often. But I do really enjoy taking something so mundane and giving it character and life. It’s a subject matter which has appealed to me since my first year at Slade and I enjoy seeing how far I can explore it and open it up.
I suppose that’s what painting is, taking a mundane object, which is a simple tube of oil paint, and giving the material some emotional significance.
Yeah exactly – and the same with drawing something so simple as putting pencil to paper can be so exciting and inspiring – it was Bonnards drawings that really got me excited about art when I was younger.
How closely do you try and render the chair you see in front of you?
Well I originally draw them from life but the chair never fully looks like the chair in front of me – I suppose I’m just as interested as the space around the object as the object itself, that’s why in some of the works the chair motif is simple and the background very built up. The ‘wonkiness’ and the character comes from my drawings rather than the chair itself
How have you approached this new solo show, and what can we expect from it?
So this is my first ever solo show which has been quite nerve-racking but also really exciting. I’ve been lucky enough to have a studio space over summer (with thanks to Oli Epp for a residency in June). The series of works for this show started with a set of A6 drawings of all the chairs in my flat- I went from making works this scale to 180x170cm canvases which although challenging, I ultimately wanted to approach a massive painting with the same expression as a small piece. Some of my works in the show I was happiest are the A1 paintings on paper – I felt that the paper really loosened me up and made me approach this subject matter in a new light – the chairs became much more abstract and obscure, you can hardly tell they are chairs in some of the pieces. I enjoy that ambiguity, I like it when people have to guess and make their own narrative for what it is in the painting.
Seating Arrangement opens on Thursday the 6th of September.
Delphian Gallery at theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Road London E2 8DL.
The Facebook event for the private view can be found HERE
We are expecting the guest list to fill up very quickly so make sure you rsvp to the Eventbrite HERE
The exhibition is kindly supported by theprintspace.

Eleven student artists you should be following on Instagram right now

Artist Florence Hutchings Instagram post in her studio

Want the low-down on the best artists on Instagram right now? We’ve got you covered.

Instagram is undoubtedly the best place for artists to share their work with the world right now. It is bursting at the seams with incredible art in every genre and from every corner of the globe. We’re going to be bringing you a roundup of some of our absolute favourites from across the whole spectrum of mediums. First up is our pick of the 11 best student artists you should be following on Instagram. 

 

Nick Macneil (@nickmacneilart)

Wimbledon College Of Art

Nick’s works are painted on odds bits of detritus; broken fibreboard, and off-cuts of MDF. These abstract paintings are akin to collage in the way they are assembled, and the expressive gestural brushstrokes sit perfectly with abstract planes of colour.

 

April Jackson (@apriljacksonart)

Chelsea College of Arts

April Jackson’s large scale paintings go through a process of pouring, soaking and staining the canvas, creating abstract forms that interrelate and communicate. They investigate binary oppositions, the thresholds between paint and surface, form and fluidity and the autonomy of painting.

 

Mark Connolly (@mark__connolly) 

Royal Drawing School

Working in a monochrome pallete, Mark Connolly combines etchings and mono prints into large scale collages drawing inspiration from Persian art and tapestries. 

 

Gwennan Thomas (@gwennan_thomas)

Royal College of Art

Gwennan Thomas’ paintings hover somewhere in between abstraction and representation, as the loose, gestural marks often hint at something recognisable amid the sea of colour.

 

Sanne Maloe Slecht (@sanne_maloe)

Royal College of Art

Sanne Maloe Slecht is a Dutch-born painter now living and working in London. Her approach to her work is unorthodox, as she often modifies the canvases physically as well as painting upon them.

 

Tomas Harker (@tomasharker)

Royal College of Art

Tomas Harker uses the material qualities of paint as a way of reinterpreting images, and its fallibility as a medium to mirror the effects and failures of history.

Striped Scarf, oil on canvas, 61x76cm

A post shared by Tomas Harker (@tomasharker) on

 

Harry Roberts (@hp.roberts)

Camberwell College of Arts

Harry Roberts combines precisely rendered bodily with pop-like juxtapositions of text. His subject-matter is diverse, but there are often allusions to sports, vegetables, and items of clothing.

new painting 200x160cm

A post shared by Harry Roberts (@hp.roberts) on

 

Holly Mills (@hollyveramills)

Royal Drawing School

Holly Mills has been on our radar for a while, after we discovered her work at Beers Contemporary. Her work is great whether she is painting, drawing, or etching.

Sun rising driving south #etching #drypoint #printmaking #risingsun

A post shared by Holly Mills (@hollyveramills) on

 

Igor Moritz (@igor.moritz)

Igor Moritz’s work combines the bright colouration of Fauvism with the figuration of Expressionism, and his work sits somewhere between Henri Matisse and Egon Schiele.

 

Danny Romeril (@d_romeril)

Central Saint Martins

Danny Romeril is an exciting young painter currently studying at the CSM. Much of his work is autobiographical, often featuring characters that look like Danny himself. He recently exhibited alongside Florence in the Hedley Roberts curated show Places, Faces, and Spaces at New Art Projects.

Live studio audience (mum and dad) 2018 Oil on canvas

A post shared by ROMƎRIL (@d_romeril) on

 

Florence Hutchings (@florencebh)

Slade School of Fine Art

A student at The Slade, Florence Hutchings is one of the most exciting young artists around at the moment, which explains why she already has a big upcoming show at The Saatchi Gallery later in the year. We first found Florence’s work on Instagram, and we’re very happy to include her in our first open-call exhibition in April 2018, which she went on to win. Her first solo show opens with us in September 2018.

 

Jesus Leguizamo

Jesus Leguizamo

Jesus Leguizamo is a figurative painter from Bogotà, Colombia who recently featured in Saatchi’s list of new and upcoming artists. His works are rich in detail and are incredibly tactile. They are portraits of vivid memories and abstract concepts including themes such as fatherhood, war and love. Sections of his paintings are intensely focused or canbe confused in a haze of passionate expression through colour and form.

Many today may disregard the value of paintings that delicately render our physical appearances in a world of camera technology and cheap means of reproduction. Everyday, millions of images of us go online on Instagram and Facebook. All of us share our experiences to preserve a moment in our lives in order to say, “Yes, this is me. I was here.”

However, painting in the realm of art has far more complexities in the way of attaining a multi-facetted essence of our existence. Throughout history we have always been drawn to images of human faces in the pursuit of stories they may tell. Personal histories and relationships are embedded in each brushstroke. Works like the paintings by Jesus Leguizamo are not simply faithful recreations or most detailed copies of how a person looks like. What is truly revealing is when we turn our attention to the information the artist chooses to omit,blur or distort and the reasons behind these decisions. It’s through these balances that we gain insight. The human sphere isn’t so stable as a photograph, nor are the ideas that define who we are.

The hand touching paintbrush on to canvas is the hand that presses the camera shutter. Two kinds of reality interpreted: a layered thoughtfulness as opposed to spontaneity as seen in nature. Both can be equally exciting but through contemporary figurative painting, we may be more fruitful in discovering interwoven dynamics of conscious and unconscious intentions within layers of paint.

To the viewer, Leguizamo communicates the mind’s eye. All surroundings are condensed to blocks of light or dark. Sometimes steams of light are permitted, or thick dabs of paint that recall violent emotional links. Actions are often concentrated on and our eyes are drawn to the way a scholar scratches his head in frustration or the lingering gaze of a soldier, dressed and ready to go into combat. We cannot read any other aspect of his expression or know with any clarity what he truly looks like. Striking impasto paint, fleshy tones of redand brown evoking images of healing wounds, obscure most of his face. Is this the echo of a loved one’s memory? Or does it foreshadow emotional and physical trauma to come? Where the photograph is a window to the eyes, the painting is a window to our inner selves.

Leguizamo’s work is so accessible because it gives us the thrill of uncovering clues to the human condition. From understanding others, we can begin to understand ourselves.

Words – Wingshan Smith

Conversation between artists Benjamin Murphy and Billy Childish.

 

Billy Childish is an artist who is as prolific in painting as he is in poetry, prose, and music, all of which coalesce to form a coherent body of work that would take most people four lifetimes to create.

His work transcends the gossip about his character, be it his involvement with a prominent YBA or his short-lived membership of a certain art movement.

His work is created from a conceptually free mindset, and his work shuns the pretentiousness enacted by the more self-conscious. He believes that art should be autonomous and that the viewer must read each work as they see it.

On top of all of this, Billy Childish is one of the most genuine and well-mannered men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Below is the transcript of a conversation I had with him last year before his solo exhibition The House At Grass Valley at Carl Freedman Gallery.

 

BM – What relevance does the House at Grass Valley have, to both yourself and this body of work?

BC – Most of my paintings come from an immediate response to images, this was in response to a photograph of their house in Grass Valley California. My friend Johnny’s father built the house and I have visited there with my wife who is from California. My work is carried out very quickly, the response is very automatic. There’s little mental process, just this quick reaction – it’s how most of my work is undertaken. It’s not important that there is a real house Grass Valley. People might want to know the story but a painting is in another world that lives beyond the location. The ‘real’ almost becomes immaterial.

BM – Why did you choose to include the works of Russian Literature: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Gogol etc.?

BC – These people had a visceral engagement with life, and decent human integrity. I like people with moral depth and intelligence. All of these things are not bound in time; I believe a painting collapses time. That sounds grandiose in a way…

BM – You mean its universal?

BC – Yes, the paintings are difficult to place, you could place them anywhere in the last hundred years, but I would also counter that they are very modern. They acknowledge their history if you like, and wear their hearts on their sleeves. I declare my loves and celebrate my influences, which is something that artists used to do.

BM – I think the reason most artists these days are more reluctant to share their inspirations is because they are trying to claim that they have entirely original ideas.

BC – Yes, they want to pretend that they have invented everything themselves. We’re in this situation where art is tied to fashion. Art is almost trailing behind fashion, rather than leading from the front, so people are hugely worried about how to find themselves and how to be original rather than authentic. It’s very adolescent.

BM – A lot of artists don’t become relevant until long after they’ve died and society has had a chance to catch up.

BC – Absolutely, you can be so far ahead of the curve that you appear to be behind it – I’m one of those guys. It can be a problem if you’re career minded, but lucky for me I’m not. I paint the paintings that I want to paint when I want to paint them, I don’t do anything for an audience. There’s nothing more dated than the contemporary.

BM – Would you say you were an obsessive, is it a compulsion?

BC – I think that we’re all obsessive and compulsive. Whether it’s: somebody who’s obsessive about working in a bank; or tidying their house; or someone who’s obsessively creative.

BM – A lot of your inspirations (Van Gogh, Dostoyevsky, Munch) make works about isolation. I see that same isolation in a lot of your work, be it painting, prose, poetry etc. Is that a concern or an inspiration for you?

BC – I suppose I have been trying to work out who I am and what that might mean, it takes lot of introspection. I was not given a lot of good information as a young man, and I come from quite a fractured background. I was finding maturity and a path through all of that. I now know the value of being here and the value of integrity, truth, and honesty. It’s taken a long while, and its not through my cleverness or my abilities, its through luck and grace.

BM – You had a tough upbringing in certain ways; do you believe that artists who have suffered some kind of hardship are naturally better artists?

BC – I think a lot of expression, and trying to understand the world can come from dysfunction. If somebody is burdened with suffering it can be a very valuable tool for them.

I’m sure art encourages mad men, and I’m sure it helps some mad men.

BM – So would you say that these works are more autonomous than your early works?

BC – I’m in them, but I don’t use the same piece of brain as I used to. The hand that drew in the caves is the hand that draws now, there’s no gap. It’s primal, because its unconscious and it’s beyond time. Beauty is highly underrated, and so is craft and aesthetic. I often say to people I don’t make art I make pictures; I leave art to the artists.

BM – That’s the opposite of what a lot of contemporary artists would say.

BC – That’s because I’m being sarcastic and in fact they’re not artists. If something needs to be in a gallery to be recognized as art, it very possibly isn’t.

BM – With conceptual art, do you not believe that the crafting of an idea is enough rather than the crafting of a material?

BC – Anything can be enough; I don’t have any problem with conceptual art. I’m happy for Tate Modern to be full of conceptual art, for it to be a Sunday outing for families, and for it to be like an amusement park.

But I would also say that a lot of conceptual art has devalued its own language through overuse. The same can be said of abstract art. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t have relevance or value but if you have a diet of only chocolate it makes you sick.

Society and art are all so diabolically mundane because it is very easy to big up rubbish and very easy to dismiss the real. Very few people can tell the difference. But the real will always survive and will eventually raise itself to the surface in good time.

When I talk about this stuff people think what a dark view, but I have a total optimism in this.

BM – Do you think that the art world nowadays is too celebrity-focused?

BC – Society is obsessed with celebrity, and there’s no reason why art would be excluded from that. It’s that adolescent trend, the decadence of the world we live in. The art world personifies that decadence. It’s all greed; greed is borne of a lack of confidence, and a lack of spiritual belief. It’s not because these people are bad but that they lack self-confidence. We feel that we’re in competition with each other, and that’s because we’re a spiritually bankrupt decadent society. But truth and goodness will always survive.

BM – A lot of your work is quite melancholy, would you agree?

BC – Melancholy is underrated; there is a very melancholic feel to the world. A lot of people misunderstand melancholy; in a way it can be an introspective and calm place. It’s not going to obliterate you, it just tones everything down – its not misery. We’re such a mixed bag of emotions, and we have to understand that we live beyond them. There are a lot of quite dark things in my poetry because one of my favorite things is a black humor. Often people are surprised that I’m quite lighthearted.

BM – Do you think that for you your work is a way of excising some past demons?

BC – I think it does happen, it’s all tied into this existential feeling of being lost and alone without god.

It doesn’t matter where the problem is it’s just how much you identify with it. And being able to not identify with those aspects of ourselves, just recognize them. The ones who find it difficult are the ones who get stuck in identifying themselves as a particular aspect or qualification; they become defined by events that have happened to them, or their abilities.

The things we are always looking for is freedom, either by controlling others or by greed and money and power. But we’re seeking what we already have, and causing mischief for others in the process by looking in the wrong places. It stems from a lack of confidence in ourselves and a lack of self-awareness. One of the main jobs in life is loving yourself; you don’t have to become some kind of saint, you just have to have the guts to get to know yourself, and realize that your problems and defects are perfectly ok.

(Originally published in This Is Tomorrow Magazine)

Kevin Perkins

 

We’re very excited to announce that we will be working with Texas-based artist Kevin Perkins. He will be putting some works into our next show Obscurely Prophetic (more details to come soon).

Check out his page under our Artists tab for more info.

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