Can you tell us about your new show 'Face the Music'?
I
have hand-painted over 30 vibrant portraits that feature some of my favourite
iconic musicians from across the decades. These include; Muddy Waters, Chuck
Berry, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper,
Prince, Nirvana, Radiohead and many, many more.
How
did you select the musicians to be featured?
Well
all these artists have made music that I absolutely love. I also wanted to tell
the story of Rock 'n' Roll and popular music across the decades from the 1940s
to now and I've selected musicians that I feel are really significant stepping
stones in this narrative.
Describe
the artistic style of your exhibition?
Hmm
electric, low brow, folk art portraits hahah! In all seriousness when I started
work on 'Face the Music' I wanted the portraits to be very graphic
representation of the musicians boiling down their essence as well as their
likenesses. When I initially sketched out the portraits I tried to not only
create good caricature based likenesses but to also include a sense of their
personality and music they created. I have been very deliberate in my colour
selection whether it's warm pastel colours to represent the wholesome sounds of
the 1950's or vibrant bold colours to illustrate the immense shift that took place in
popular music through the 1960s & 1970's. I have also selected certain eras
or costumes to represent significant points in the career of each musician to
again help create a graphic, instantly recognisable representation.
Tell us more about the costumes you chose to depict each musician in?
Most of the musicians I chose to paint have had quite extensive careers so I did a lot of research to select the one outfit that I thought really summed it up. A
few examples are for the Beatles (as seen above) I really couldn't go
past their costumes from Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, this album
not only really changed the Beatles' career but also the idea of what
an album could represent and opened up the flood gates for 'concept
albums'. I painted Elvis Presley in his pink sports coat and blue and
black leisure shirt that he famously wore on his appearance on the
Milton Berle show in 1956. The television network received so many
complaints about Elvis' gyrating hips that he had to be filmed from the
shoulders up on the Ed Sullivan show. Jimi Hendrix had a number of
pretty fabulously flamboyant outfits throughout his career but I chose
to depict him in the yellow pirate shirt he wore at London’s Finsbury Park
Astoria on March 31, 1967 where he famously set his fender stratocaster
alight, again a very iconic image. For David Bowie I used the cover
image from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane the follow-up to his breakthrough
album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Bjork is another artist who has had so many wonderfully iconic and
unique outfits but I went with the swan dress that she famously wore to
the 2001 Academy Awards and also on the cover of her album Vespertine.
Describe
your technique?
Each
portrait is painted on a flat timber block that I have hand sanded. I chose to
paint them on timber as I love the natural grain that shows through painting. I
have deliberately chosen to paint with a feathered border so you still get to see the
timber peeking behind the portrait. It also helps keep each portrait unique. I
initially wanted to use gouache paint for its vibrancy and flatness but It
doesn't create the most durable finish and I felt that placing the finished
portraits behind glass defeated the point of painting them of such lovely
pieces of timber. After a fair bit of trial and error I settled on using a mix
of flat matte acrylic and acrylic gouache paints to achieve a wonderfully
vibrant and flat matte opaque colour palette.
How
does this differ from your other artwork and illustrations?
It
was really different for me to work with quite a simple brief this time around
and to really develop a unique style, technique and visual language for this
show. I am really happy with the end result; each piece is unique but fits with the look of the exhibition. Another massive difference was that I was
working manually. I usually work digitally or at least add digital elements to
a hand-drawn sketches but for this show I wanted to work solely by hand.
What
are some pros and cons to working solely by hand?
Well
I definitely love not working in front of a computer screen. It actually feels really
cathartic to be working manually on one thing at a time building a finished
piece of art one colour or layer at a time. I also really love the happy
accidents that happen when working by hand be it a little piece of white gesso
undercoat cheekily sticking out behind a background or a little swoosh of paint that
didn't quite go where you wanted it to go but feathered out beautifully. I find
these kind of happy accidents are pretty rare when you work digitally and they
are also really hard to replicate and always tend look a little forced or fake
when done digitally. There is one big con... No magic undo button that and
waiting for paint to dry.
What
Next for John D-C?
I've
had such a fun time working on "Face the Music" that I'd love to
continue working in this format and style... who knows I might even move out of
the musical world... I'd love to work on a few pop culture portraits, 'Face the Movies' has a nice ring to it.
You can see more of John D-C's processes and work in progress for 'Face the Music' over at his Instagram page.
