Inner Worlds, The Story Behind the Exhibition

It’s quite strange now that it’s all over, because I think what I’m trying to do is reflect on what’s actually happened over the last month. 🙂

Tonight was the finale. We showed Totemica with Cries from the LTN playing live over the top of it, and honestly it was brilliant. It was everything I’d hoped it would be. We had the music, we had the animation, we had the original paintings surrounding the room, and it became this fully immersive experience. You could literally step inside our worlds. It felt like the perfect way to end the exhibition.

But actually, if I think about it properly, tonight was only one part of it.

There was the private view, which is always a bit different because everybody’s there socially. You’re having loads of little conversations and trying to speak to everybody, but nobody really gets to hear the whole story.

Then we did the artist talk.

I actually really enjoyed that because Tara and I just decided we’d shoot from the hip. We didn’t script anything. We just spoke honestly about the work, where it had gone, why it had changed, and what we’d discovered along the way. I think people saw something completely different because they suddenly understood what was actually going on inside our heads while we were making it.

Then tonight became the ending.

Or maybe not the ending.

Maybe just the end of this chapter.

Looking back, I honestly had no idea this exhibition was going to end up where it did.

We started talking about this nearly a year ago and I never knew what it would become. I completely shot from the hip with this one. There wasn’t this grand masterplan where we knew exactly where everything was going to end up. If anything, the best thing about the whole project was that we didn’t have one.

Tara just kept making the work she naturally makes. I kept making the work I naturally make. Neither of us tried to influence the other. There wasn’t some agreement that we both had to head towards the same outcome. We just trusted each other. We kind of just said, let’s make the work we make and see what happens.

I actually think that’s why it worked.

Tara creates these incredible surreal worlds. That’s just who she is as a painter. It’s her release. It’s how she communicates. Then somewhere along the way something happened with my work. The heads stopped being portraits. They became the observers of Tara’s worlds. That wasn’t planned. It just happened. And once it happened, everything suddenly made sense.

Then Ruth Millington came into the conversation. I think we probably already knew what was happening, but we were too close to it to really see it. Ruth kind of helped us articulate what was already there. Suddenly it wasn’t Collision anymore.

It was Inner Worlds.

That changed everything because once we’d understood that, all these other ideas started appearing. That’s probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned through this. Sometimes you need to step away from your own work and allow somebody else to help you understand what you’ve actually made.

Then you’ve got Seventh Circle.

Honestly, they’ve been incredible.

From the beginning they just trusted us. Every mad idea we came back with, they were basically, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

That’s such a rare thing.

Then they hung the exhibition.

We deliberately walked away.

We wanted them to curate it because that’s what they do.

We trusted them completely. We’d done our job by making the work, and then it was over to them. When we walked back into the gallery, it honestly felt like they’d understood the work in exactly the way we’d hoped they would. The hang elevated it. They found relationships between the paintings that even we hadn’t necessarily seen ourselves.

That’s collaboration. Then Stephen Norton came in and documented everything beautifully. Then Cries from the LTN came in tonight and suddenly there was another layer. That’s what I keep coming back to. This exhibition wasn’t built by one person. It was built by lots of people all bringing something different.

Everybody added another layer. Then there’s Totemica itself. That was a completely different experience for me because I was given fifteen minutes of music and my response was to make a film. What’s funny is that I didn’t really overthink it. I just responded.

I threw every single thing I’d learned over the last twenty years into that animation. Every trick I’ve learned as an animator. Every instinct I’ve built up working as an Art Director.

But for once there wasn’t a client saying it needs to be quicker. There wasn’t somebody saying people won’t watch that. There wasn’t somebody asking for a bigger logo or a stronger call to action.

Instead I found myself doing the opposite. I kept slowing things down. I wanted people to sit with the work. That became really important to me.

Just wait.

Allow it.

Allow the transitions.

Allow people to breathe.

Allow people to actually be present with the paintings.

I learned a lot from doing that because my whole working life has been about speed.

This wasn’t.

It was about patience.

Actually, thinking about it now, patience seems to have been one of the biggest lessons through the whole body of work. Halfway through I realised some of the paintings weren’t right. I had to strip them back. I had to kill certain paintings to allow better paintings to come through.

At the time that felt terrifying because there was a deadline and there was an exhibition coming. But hand on heart, it was the right thing to do. Sometimes you’ve just got to sit there and ask yourself whether it really works. If it doesn’t, you have to be brave enough to change it.

The other thing that’s become really obvious to me is that this work isn’t really about portraiture anymore.

Portraiture is just how it comes out.

What I’m actually painting is emotional weight. Pressure.

Fractures. The stuff we all carry around.None of us stay fixed. That’s why the figures aren’t fixed either. That’s why they’re androgynous. That’s why they keep changing. Even the shift towards green wasn’t really about colour. It was about emotional intensity.

It just felt right.

The more I painted, the more I realised I wasn’t painting for anybody else. I’m painting because I genuinely love painting. I’ve spent twenty years working to deadlines, presentations, clients and commercial campaigns. I still love that world because it’s taught me everything I know.

But painting is different.

Painting feeds my soul.

It’s probably the closest thing I can describe to complete immersion. Everything disappears. It’s honestly one of the best feelings I’ve ever experienced. I’m forty four now and I genuinely feel like this work has become aligned with who I am. I’m not trying to make work that fits.

I’m trying to make work that tells the truth. If people connect with it, that’s brilliant. If they don’t, then that’s okay as well. Because first and foremost I have to believe it. This exhibition has also made me think differently about exhibitions. It’s made me think much more about experience.

How do you combine painting with film? With music? With conversation? With books? With photography?

How do you create something that’s bigger than paintings on a wall? That’s exciting because I already know I’ve got loads more ideas. I honestly feel like I’ve only scratched the surface.

This doesn’t feel finished.

If anything it feels like the point where something has started. I think another thing that’s changed is that I actually want to talk about the work now. For years I was happy just making it. Almost hiding behind it. Now I feel ready to communicate. Not because I want attention. Because I want to make a point.

After forty four years of living on this planet, I feel like I’ve got something to say. Hopefully the paintings are saying it. Hopefully the films are saying it. Hopefully somebody, somewhere, one day, will sit with the work and recognise something of themselves in it. Because I think that’s what art does. It creates a bridge.

It’s one human being saying, “This is how it feels.” And another human being quietly replying, “I know.” That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve taken away from Inner Worlds.

Not that it’s finished.

That it’s only just begun.