Topiary for Beginners
Address: Broomhill Art Hotel, Barnstaple,Devon, EX31 4EX Website: www.broomhillart.co.uk Email: info@broomhillart.co.uk Telephone: 01271 850262 Access: Good
Category: Visual Arts & Literature Starts: Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Ends: Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Painting for Broomhill exhibition, 55″ x 55″ oil on canvas
‘Walk Away or Jump’
Inspired by a cliff walk with one of Robert Rauschenberg’s assistants in 1979. During 1979 I was in a band called ‘The Urge’, who were discovered by an A&R man from Beggars Banquet Records, who saw us play at my degree show at Exeter College of Art. We ended up supporting ‘Bauhaus’, ‘Adam and the Ants’, ‘The Pack’ and many other Post Punk heroes. We were offered a record contract and the A&R man became our manager and Rauschenberg’s former assistant also became an important member of our team.
I lived near Exmouth and often walked across the beach and along the cliffs – this time I was accompanied by Rauschenberg’s assistant who had been staying with me. At the highest point he confessed his love for me, which was a bit of a shock and I replied ‘I’m sorry but I prefer women”. The implications of this encounter still roll around in my brain. ‘Walk Away or Jump’. This was possibly one of the major turning points in my life – what did I turn down? Fame, fortune?
Robert Rauschenberg was a massive influence on my painting, printing and music. Images (and sounds) that are arbitrarily spliced together in an apparent random manner will, when juxtaposed against each other, create a narrative. This meshing together of unrelated imagery may appear to be arbitrary but the intellectual decision making that goes with the process is absolutely phenomenal. It is therefore unrealistic to expect the uneducated masses to view these images as ‘real art’. The birth of Photoshop has enabled everybody to create ‘non-intellectual’ versions of Rauchenberg (and Warhol) – only the educated truly understand.