The art that you present through your project A Body of Desire has such a unique style, i personally feel it grabs you through its utter beauty but keeps the eye engaged with its blends of raw & dark elements. What inspired the A Body of Desire movement?
Thank you so much! I’ve spent most of my life creating things in anyway I can. During school I did art and music, and after school I spent my time writing and performing in a rock band. After the band sort of finished up, or took a pause, I moved into film music and production which was somewhere where I felt at home, but I always had this urge to do more, keep all sides of my creative self-active.
Pursing music is a difficult thing, and I’d grown up with issues with anxiety and OCD so I needed a way of getting everything out. A Body of Desire first started with writing – I wrote things down, just things that I felt. When you spend so much time with your creative self I feel like you started to feed off yourself and the world suddenly isn’t enough. A Body of Desire is about that feeling – the dreams, the weight of guilt, the obsession with things – it’s about a mind, a body of people that want to be present, but can only do it in the pursuit of something else – some act of creation that sublimates all other feeling. In the end, we are all just bodies of desire, and the sooner we realize, maybe the sooner we can detach from that.
To a new viewer of A Body of Desire how would you best explain the project?
I’d probably say that A Body of Desire is a feeling – it started as an experimental art photography and poetry concept, but since then has grown to include my music and my curiosity for collecting things. We fear death, but I think there is a lot we can learn from it – like if we could look at life through the lens of death itself, everything would seem more beautiful.
How does it feel having over 20 thousand fans across your social media that connect with your art?
It feels amazing! When I started on Instagram I truly didn’t know how much of an art community existed on it. I’ve loved connecting with like-minded people, it’s amazing what that sense of connection does to inspire and motivate you.
2019 has been a busy year for you, from an online status to now having your work available in physical form, how has that process been for you? And how did it feel being a finalist in your very first exhibition at the Hornsby Art Prize?
2019 has been massive. A big part of this year I really wanted to get outside the box – Instagram has been an amazing platform for me, but in my work I feel like a lot of the impact comes from standing in front of it, reading from a book in your hands, or examining some curiosity. There is something unalienable about that force. I’ve been dying to exhibit my art and planning a solo show for most of the year, and just out of curiosity I entered one of my works ‘Melancholy’ into the Hornsby Art Prize mid year. I totally forgot I had done it and a couple of months later I got the email to say I’d been selected as a finalist and was to be exhibited in the finalist’s exhibition. For me that was a sign and sort of jump started everything in terms of my own solo show. It’s an incredible feeling being recognised for your work, but the weird thing is the hardest part seems to be letting go and just getting out there
You are a man of many talents and we have seen that you have expressed art through many forms such as poetry, music, photography and more, when you think of A Body of Desire do you have a main focus? or does it have no boundaries?
The incredible thing about this project is that it has taught me so much about who I am. In life we are taught we have to be one thing, and at first I had an incredible amount of guilt for spending time on my art away from my music career. That guilt, for an already anxious person is hard, but eventually I realised that A Body of Desire was everything for me all in one place. I could do all the things I’d done as a kid, all the art, my love for writing and photography, music, collecting – it just seemed natural that A Body of Desire became a place where every small part of what I do made sense, so in in that way I like to think of it as boundless. There is a core feeling to what makes A Body of Desire, I think it’s like a romance in dark and transitory beauty – things that make us stop from a second and look up at the moon, or at the tide as it smashes against the coastline. I like to think of it like a movement of sorts, the stillness between breathes that makes us feel whole.
You have an exhibition coming up at the Sydney Art School in 2020, how has the process been organising the art you will showcase? And how would you describe the work you will be showcasing?
The process leading up to my first solo exhibition has actually been really cathartic. I’ve been able to bring work together that I’ve had for years together with new work, and it has been inspiring to put it all in one place and think of the best way to present it. I think that is sort of the the best part of exhibiting a body of work – it gets you thinking in way that just isn’t possible if your only concerned with creating online content. The work I will be showcasing is pretty widespread – I have a core writing and photography focus which is juxtaposed next to my collection of curiosities, things I have found in nature.
Who are some artists that have influenced you and your project A Body of Desire?
I have a heap of influences when it comes to my art, that is where the online world has been a blessing. I love renaissance and romantic art and literature painters Botticelli, writers like Emily Dickinson, composers like Chopin – then there are more contemporary writers, artists and composers, Ted Hughes, composers like Johann Johannsson, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, photographers like Haris Nukem, Shea DeTar and Remi Rebillard. There are just so many out there today doing some incredible things and the cool thing about my own art is that I get to draw from all of them, there are no boundaries.
What can we expect from you in the near future?
You can expect more shows, more art, music, writing and bigger projects with bigger scopes. I want to be doing big commissions, seeing my art in exhibitions across the world, publishing art books and doing performances.
For someone that is interested in attending your next exhibition, where can they go to see it?
My next exhibition is at the Sydney Art School, 63 Hunter St Hornsby, from the 17-19th of January, 2020. Opening night is Friday the 17th from 7pm. Hope to see you there!