‘Have you seen The Shining?’‘No, absolutely fuck that! No chance’‘Wow, ok, you must, you’ll love it!’‘Nope, fuck no! My mind is dark enough already!’Well thank you very much! This is your doing, you kept bloody asking and I have finally given what you want. So, you better buy the thing!What a terrifying movie, ridiculously brilliant. It’s one of those that you had no idea that so many of the references that you see in sketches have come from The Shining. Now, what is more terrifying? The horror and gore, or the destruction to one’s mental health and the sheer terror that unfolds as a result. For me, the latter. Without doubt.If you know my work and my inspiration then you will know that mental health runs strongly throughout so much of art and its gritty undertow, so The Shining was a brilliant opportunity to embrace that and harness that emotion to create something so intense that it burns inside out. After all the years of saying no, it feels good to have confronted it – the fact that my daughter mocked me for not seeing it when she had already pushed me towards it. Oh, by the way, before anyone calls the authorities, she is 18 now, although come to think about it, I dread to think when she watched it! Let’s move on quickly! The Shining is another great example where it could easily sit within my ‘Storyteller’ works as well as my ‘Lost in Hollywood’ collection, but I appreciate that visually, the strength comes from what we saw on screen. What this does, however, is give me the opportunity to treat the piece as a ‘Storyteller’ project and give the focus upon the detail as opposed to the characters, to build that sense of intrigue and suspense, to put you right into the scene, good luck with that! However, the sheer intensity of those bloody twin girls couldn’t be overlooked so for a small detail, they are massive! Jack holding the axe has been shown only as a sinister shadow and as a reflection in the mirror. It was all about the devil well and truly being in the detail.Colour played a big part in the film despite the harshness of the settings, who can forget that sight of the blood elevator, words fail me. Then there is the blue bike and the psychedelic carpet. I set about making this a big feature. I always get feedback from those close to me whilst I work on each piece and one comment was that the scene looked like ‘Resident Evil’ but more sinister, I’ll take that! Don’t get any ideas about commissioning that please! Anyone for Winne the Pooh?!The aim was to mimic a much earlier piece ‘The Wolf Within’ that was a brutally dark interpretation of Red Riding Hood where mental health and its destructive force ran riot and burned so intensely. You’ll see that the colour palette is very similar, another example of a niche piece but one that is adored by those who have one hell of a dark side. Lunatics! I use thorns a lot in pieces to depict evil, they creep and crawl around the scene, attempting to turn all things bad and suffocate good. They amplify the toxicity of the piece and its narrative; I love using them – so much that they feature on the original piece – health and safety can bugger right off in the name of art!Considering I held off tackling The Shining for so long, I had to really go for it and to put it to bed. The trouble is that the end results are so exciting and authentic that there are many more options to revisit on this one. Not yet though, I need to skip through a field of daisies and catch butterflies in my bonnet first. I will be honest though, something arrived yesterday from America that is part of a future project and it’s everything that I hoped it would be, for now though, it can hide in the cupboard!I can’t wait to learn what is your favourite part of ‘REDRUM’, there are so many special touches that I am proud of. It was a classic example of challenging myself technically but working with a real ferocity to be authentic and to inject such a strong feeling of rage within that it does look like it is combusting in front of you, from the inside out. A particular detail that I feel is so powerful and apt is how good and evil are battling it out. The vast majority of the times when I have shown this there is only ever one winner but look closely and you will see a single dove being attacked from all angles, facing a seemingly impossible task due to how evil is fuelled and taking over. It is so powerful and perfectly depicts how one’s demons can take control and their shadows grow so tall behind them that they can’t then see the whitest of walls.So, you dark gits have got what you want, happy now?!I hope you enjoy this piece forever… and ever… and ever.
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