4 Untitled Arrangement

I found myself making a lot of work about being a fan of people I’m not a fan of. I started to reflect more broadly about what I love, and what I’m personally a fan of.  Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde is my hands down Hero.  I don’t even want to say I’m a fan of Oscar Wilde, it sounds too superficial, I’d rather say I’m an acolyte, a follower or a disciple. My love for Oscar Wilde’s life and works is something really dear to me, deep and personal. Something about the way he writes awakened everything in me and I never truly understood beauty, love or the importance of youth before he explained it to me. When someone insults Oscar Wilde it’s not only like they are insulting me but everything about me and everything I believe in. I once got into a fight with an 80 year old preacher because he made a homophobic slur against Wilde. I’m not proud of it but.. yes I am. 

So yes, Oscar Wilde is my supreme. I love Philosophy, Greek mythology and the Female Gaze feminist theory. I love the music of Patrick Wolf, Joanna Newsom, The Cranberries,  The Cure, The Sex Pistols and Alexisonfire. I love Sherlock Holmes, gothic horror, Alice’s Adventures and Wonderland, Lolita, Brideshead Revisited, P.G. Wodehouse and Lord of the Rings. I love movies by Wes Anderson, Baz Luhrmann and Tim Burton, I love camp 50s musicals, Eurovision and Marilyn Monroe. I find Club Kids, street fashion and sub cultures fascinating and I collect Victorian photographs, antique bottles and anything to do with the Occult. I love the illustrations of Edward Gorey and my favorite artists are Klimt, Schiele, Michael Borremans and Elizabeth Peyton.

All of these things seem to have very little connection besides how I feel about them when I experience them.  And I guess it’s a sort of odd romantic nostalgia. A longing or a homesickness for a time or place I’ve never been to, familiar but distant, like remembering a dream.  There are certain colours, forms, textures and motifs I connect with these feelings but it’s very hard to describe what they are exactly. 

So I had a look around my studio at the all the stuff I collect and put together an arrangement based on aesthetic connections but mainly emotional connections, how the objects made me feel- that weird, misty dream like nostalgia.
 

I searched for tastes and smells that had this connection. I didn’t find a perfect taste but the smell was in a bees wax candle, a very muted subtle smell of honey. The actual smell of honey was too sharp, too strong. And I searched my music for the song that had this connection and I found it was more Joanna Newsom’s music in general it reminded me of than one song in particular.  So I presented this work and with somewhat confusion. I couldn’t quite explain how this was fan culture anymore.. It was just a small collection of things, things I’m not a fan of, but things that give me the feeling of being a fan.. and I had no idea where to go from here.