A strange and wonderful journey

Last week I finished a new piece called Rough Love.

It started with a bundle of willow branches I had lying around the studio that a friend kindly donated to me. People I know often gift me the strangest things because “you can make some art with it”, and I’m always grateful for their generosity. I scanned them in close and they came out looking exactly like veins, so I decided to lean into it.

I traced a heart shape using the outline of a pair of scissors and dropped it into the middle of all those branches. One red heart, hanging in a tangle of veins.

Then I did something I’ve never tried before (and probably for good reason). I fed a sheet of sandpaper through my inkjet printer, and… it worked. I’m not sure if the printer will survive, but hey, it’s been through worse.

The second panel is a photograph I took of a set of masks held by the Stanley Kubrick archive in London. These are the masks from Eyes Wide Shut. I also printed that in colour on another sheet of sandpaper, cut around it with a scalpel, and mounted it onto a sheet of much rougher, red paper underneath. Both panels are now glued to wood and sitting side by side as a diptych.

Coincidentally or not, Criterion put out a trailer this week for their new Kubrick box set, landing in October. Thirteen films, all restored, the whole back catalogue in one box. Just take my money already.

Watching it was a good reminder of something I’ve thought about a lot in the past. Every single frame that man ever shot looks like it was composed for a gallery wall.

On a more random note, I’ve had the Spawn soundtrack on repeat in the studio this week. The 1997 one, where they paired alt rock artists with electronic musicians for each track. Metallica and DJ Spooky. Henry Rollins and Goldie. Incubus and DJ Greyboy. The Prodigy and Tom Morello. It’s a strange and wonderful journey that still sounds as fresh as it does nostalgic. Nobody asked for Henry Rollins over a drum and bass beat, but here we are, and it works like sandpaper through a printer.

Exit Reality t-shirts are available now here.

Cheers,
Joe