FAR OUT IS MY NEW exhibition of TRAVEL RECORDS, PHOTOgraphS, POETRY AND PAINT. NOW SHOWING IN Paris, FREE ENTRY. BELOW IS A RAMBLING TALE OF HOW IT CAME TO BE.
I’m on the road a lot. Not always an actual road, but usually a path of sorts at the very least. On pretty much every trip I’m taking photos, making notes, shaking hands and trying to figure out what’s just happened rather than plan for what’s coming next. It’s a form of semi-controlled chaos which with only a hazy online and a vague sense of forward motion still seems to work quite well. Recording everything as I go feels like the obvious thing to do wherever I am. I’m not sure why, and asking existential questions about photography is like pleasuring yourself in the mirror so let’s skip past it.
Anyway, along with the photos and videos I take I’ve been scrawling semi-illegible text, notes-to-self, tips for editors etc, and occasionally when I’ve overdosed on screen time I revert to smearing paint or pastels on hotel stationary. The photos and videos make perfect sense, it’s why brands and magazines work with me and it’s easy to share through social media. But the written ravings and dodgy paintings of a jet lagged lunatic don’t have quite the same marketing ability.
Throughout this past year I’ve moved house a few times, which along with the usual stresses and strains means taking stock of your belongings. For me this meant sifting through these archives. I’ve been lucky that my life and work has taken me to a lot of bizarre and beautiful places, the roll-call of destinations is as disparate as it is long, but between nostalgia and inspiration I found the common thread running through all of these sketches, photos and notes and started to make sense of it.
There are moments when you’re in a place and everything comes together. Have you ever stood somewhere and felt like all of the wires inside you have finally been connected? Supercharged with acid-sharp senses it’s almost impossible not to have fun, to surrender to whatever happens next. I think it’s this feeling that makes the lazily titled hobby of “travel” so addictive. I realised that each and every time I’d stopped and hit record (whatever the medium) it was either because I was in this zen-like state or aggressively pursuing it like a globe-spinning geo-junkie.
The old idiom “you can’t ride two horses at once” always sounded like a fun challenge rather than a rule and I think all of my favourite things are a roughly mixed cocktail. I realised that I’m most drawn to the projects and ideas that blend the unexpected. FAR OUT as a series came together in the same vein. For every thousand ideas that sync to iCloud, only one or two ever break the surface and take seed, and the way these artworks came about was through a series of happy accidents.
At the very end of last summer I was staying in a farmhouse on the south coast of Portugal, it was a whitewashed soulful place entirely surrounded by trees, trails, and the occasional barking dog. There was a storm battering the region for the whole week. For whatever reason (that we won’t get into now) I have long resisted the label “poetry” when writing, but at a certain point during this trip I realised it was a pointless battle. It’s poetry plain and simple. Responsive words, rhythm, and a dose of gut instinct, okay fine it’s poetry. So there I am sheltering from the sideways rain and pouring over a collection of art books carefully curated by the house’s owner, and because my attention span is that of a mosquito I’m also penning the odd sentence on whatever pieces of paper I can lay claim to, and skipping through cd’s from Thelonious to Mazzy Star.
After a few false starts and some lazy words inspired by Fontana, I starting rifling through my own prints that I’d brought with me. This worked. Paint, poetry, photos. Worlds collide, colours slide and words start to glide when all’s good. Or you know, something to that effect. So jumping ahead and glossing over the arduous hours spent in Parisian photo labs dusting negatives and tweaking scans, here we are. A series of artworks that for me capture that feeling of “this is exactly where I’m supposed to be”. Seasons, scenery and subject don’t really matter at a certain point. You’re either FAR OUT, or you’re counting down the days.
About halfway along my lengthy quest through the Parisian photo labs, and only after I’d left a trail of blue paint across various hotel rooms and items of clothing did I stop to think about where this work may end up. If you knock over a bottle of wine in Paris, chances are it will roll through the door of a gallery. I read a stat once that said there are more galleries here than people, and three times more photographers than galleries. Remarkable.
But in total sincerity, it’s a magical thing to be surrounded by so much art and creativity. Though when I started to explore exhibition options it just felt a bit, not me? My work has always been about spontaneity and Truman Show type moments, it just didn’t seem possible to make this fit a chic white walled room. As usual the ideological bolt from the blue struck whilst out walking the streets. Club posters pasted and layered until the edges droop. Vivaldi concert flyers taped over lingerie adverts in Marais. Wheatposting. The street. Real life backdrops. I’d found my gallery.
