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DM Interview: 60 minutes with Beezy Bailey

DM Interview: 60 minutes with Beezy Bailey

Beezy Bailey’s latest exhibition might fool you into thinking he’s mellowed. Good one. It’s the calm before the storm. MARELISE VAN DER MERWE.

Disaster struck: the sky began vomiting mud until everything was dour, dead, unable to breathe. When the answer came, it was that the earth was sick, too sick to sustain life. There was only one cure for the world’s affliction: the people had to paint themselves in all imaginable colours, and dance for a thousand years until the earth was well again.

Beezy Bailey’s latest exhibition, 1000 Year Dance Cure, is was born of this simple idea, a short fairytale crafted by Bailey and fleshed out between him and musician Brian Eno. Also collaborating were Sibonakoliso Ndaba and the Indoni Dance Group, creating what Bailey calls a dream in three dimensions.

It’s playful in the sense that it rests on fantasy, but light – not so much. It delves into the subconscious, which must necessarily take a turn for the dark at times. It’s whimsical, shifting between myth, dream and fairytale; it plays with narrative, dance, colour and music, but it doesn’t always carry the stamp of irreverence that Bailey’s long-term followers may recognise. There’s a certain darkness present, and it taps into the personal more than the political or cerebral. Well, why not, concedes Bailey: there’s a madness to art, after all.

It’s a peculiar and frustrating truth that frequently, the things people become remembered for don’t best represent them. Bailey famously and controversially constructed a black, female alter ego as a statement on “increasingly prevalent affirmative action”, which remained a defining moment in his career. There’s also scarcely a review that doesn’t mention his long friendship and working relationship with the late rock god David Bowie, something which arguably Bailey did not mind – he Bailey himself is known for a certain showmanship and flair.

But it’s also true that some of his most powerful work is not his most theatrical, and he’s had many fruitful collaborative relationships, not least the two decades he has spent working with the respected, but less globally deified Eno. He and Eno have collaborated extensively, experimenting, discovering, and ultimately creating acclaimed sound paintings exhibited at the Venice Biennale. And – for an artist known for his bluntness – Bailey can be rather soft-spoken and cerebral. He is most animated discussing what he does and how he does it, not least his technique of hunting in what he calls the clouds (of paint) on the canvas. It’s perhaps fitting, then, to let him speak for himself.

On technique: I don’t come into the studio with a pre-concept. I don’t come into the studio with a pre-concept. I either see the image in the paint or the wood. It’s nice that you can get drawn into it and participate into the process. It almost paints itself.

[…]

I work on several paintings at once, I always have, so that I don’t get bored. One fertilises the other. It is almost like a bee pollenating flowers. If I have red on my brush, I will walk around and see what needs red. I am kissing the paintings as I go around. Sometimes, suddenly, magical colour emerges.

On transience: Kentridge speaks, wonderfully, of time being bent in the studio. The whole concept of time changes in the studio. The faster I paint the more successful the end product is. People have an archaic notion that the longer it takes the better it takes. We are not shoemakers or watchmakers. We are artists. Even the great painters, Rembrandt and Velasquez, have very quick marks, capturing light before it fades.

On painting: I call it dream-reality. It accesses one’s subconscious in the process. It’s like dreaming in three dimensions. I’m absolutely convinced the dreaming process is very similar to how one paints. There are random things that come into your head and they actually make a narrative although it might not make much sense.

On time: The time-thing is such a fascinating subject. I often describe it [art] as catching magic. You only catch a glimpse of it. Sometimes I miss it, and have to paint over a painting.

On early influences/ becoming an artist: I grew up on a farm. When I was small, I had the opportunity to attend an Ndebele wedding. I will never forget the impression of all that colour. I thought life should always be so bright and full of colour.

On inspiration: Some of the most beautiful places are underwater. I don’t dive very often, but when I do it always has a huge influence.

On death: These balls of light [in the paintings] – I think they are angels. I think when we die we become balls of energy. They could be more or less depending on how much energy you release. So I put those [balls of light] in, rather than figures with wings.

On his next project: I’m continuously working. My next project is reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s screaming Pope. I took my daughter (18) to Parliament, and she was quite shocked at what she saw. I realised that a lot of them are really ugly people, those Parliamentarians. Some of them are quite grotesque. I realised I wanted to paint them because they are so ugly. I needed to paint them screaming, because they have got a lot to scream about right now. So I started a series of screaming politicians. Just when you thought it was safe [laughs].

On the Paris attacks: In a way, this [work] prophesied the Paris attacks; I completed it a few hours before they occurred. It is based on [Leonardo da Vinci’s] Last Supper. Which one is Judas? If you look closely, they are all Judas. It is an interesting example of darkness in my work, in the sense that you need the darkness to see the light. DM

1000 Year Dance Cure is on at the CIRCA gallery in the V&A waterfront until 14 December. For more information, please visit the Everard Read Gallery website.

Gallery

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