Rivers In The Sky and Complexity of theSimple. Could you elaborate on how yourown emotional landscape and inner worldinfluence the nuances of colour that youselect for your pieces? We'd be fascinatedto hear about any specific states of mindthat have led you to particular colourcombinations, and how you feel thesechoices enhance the connection betweenyour Celtic-inspired designs and thecontemporary viewer's experience.Lewis Deeney: My use of colour isenhanced by modernity in that I have anunreal access to paint and colour, whichthe Celt’s did not have, their art was oftenscapeCONTEMPORARY ART REVIEWLewis Deeney Land
carved into stone or adorning both sacredand everyday objects. Vibrant, intensecolours simply wasn’t an option.Technology defines an age and artistsalways use the latest technologies toenhance and create their work. Paint in atube is not that old an invention incomparison to the long arc of humanitycreativity. My bold use of colour, I hope,draws more attention towards Celticartwork, as in the present world there ismore visual stimulus to compete with.Colour and texture is by far the mostemotionally expressive aspect of mypractice and the two are alwaysinteracting during the painting process.My colour choice is intuitive, and eachcolour is painted in response to theprevious one, leading me on a journeyinto the painting and simultaneously intomyself. It’s hard to put into words andcomes from a deep place of mind that isbeyond language, its usually in retrospectthat I develop a verbal concept tounderstand what I’ve created.An example would be from my work OurEquilibrium, one of my favourite works andmost meaningful, my first painting to beselected for a prize, but its meaningfulnesssupersedes that. Its predominately gold, acolour of spiritual significance, I waspainting mandalas and asking questionsabout my place within the world, lookingto my art for answers. Gold is funnybecause it can easily look tacky and cheapbut when used correctly and with restraint,draws you into and beyond yourself. In thiswork gold is mixed with a myriad of colours,reds, oranges, violets, and greens of variousshades. I was looking for ways to connectwith the divine, throwing an eclectic mix ofcolours together trying to unify them,reflecting my mental state, which is verychaotic, restless, and paradoxical. The goldrepresents my higher self, my guiding lightthat harmonises the chaos within me. Theexpressive textures and chaos of coloursare harmonised by the gold, creating withinthe painting a harmonised version ofmyself. Life makes sense in the painting.Making sense of life out with a painting andoutside of studio, now that’s difficult. Artmakes sense of life.Your artist statement touches on theoppression of Celtic thought and belief.We're particularly interested in how yousee your art as a form of culturalreclamation. Could you elaborate on thisaspect of your work?Lewis Deeney: Scotland was one of the firstcountries to be conquered by the Britishand one of the last to get to leave. Scotlandhas benefited from this in many ways,however, there is a long and dark history ofcultural oppression in Scotland, such asoutlawing the Gaelic language and banningtartan. Celtic belief was actively attacked bythe Romans across Britain and Europe,moving Celtic culture out to the fringes, andgreatly impacting its collective identity.In Scotland today there is only remnantsleft if you look for them, especially in thelowland cities, the further north you go themore Celtic culture is alive and blossomingscapeCONTEMPORARY ART REVIEWLand Special Edition
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into a new modern form, which I find inspiring.There is also Celtic society’s establishingthemselves all over the world. However, therehas been so much that has been lost, activelysupressed, and manipulated over thousands ofyears it’s hard to fathom what we have lost.Therefore, I find it of great importance tocelebrate and draw attention towardsScotland’s ancient past and its rich culturalheritage. I grew up in the lowlands, in a townon the outskirts Glasgow, I had a goodupbringing, attended a pretty average schooland it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that Iactually understood any of this. Therefor I dofeel I have a purpose to share the wisdom andbeauty of Celtic culture and Scotland’s ancienthistory. My art is my message, and I amcompelled to share it.You are an established artist: your workshave been showcased in many occasions,including your recent solo The Sky isDreaming, at Fire Station Creative,Dunfermline, UK: how do you consider thenature of your relationship with youraudience? As the move of Art fromtraditional gallery spaces, to street andespecially to online platforms — asInstagram — increases, how would in youropinion change the relationship with aglobalised audience and how do youenvision the role of physical exhibitionsversus online presentations in showcasingyour work?Lewis Deeney: I deeply value and appreciatemy audience; sharing my art and witnessingothers connect with it is a true blessing. Socialmedia is a valuable tool for this but societallywe still have many teething problemsassociated with it, and many of these sadlycome from the corruption and greed ofsuch platforms... But It’s a new world, andcollectively were still trying to figure it out.There are many aspects of an artwork thatcannot be experienced online, so much islost, however, it is often experienced bysomeone who would not have had theoption to experience it, or even to knowthe work existed. 20% of an experience isbetter than zero, but when that leads us tonot seek the full 100%, we miss out on somuch.There is also an oversaturation of imagesonline which makes it hard to truly valueone. I see this with my students, who havegrown up with an abundance of images,ads, movies, all sorts of compellingdynamic imagery, for them a Matisse orKandinsky is but a blink of an eye, theoverstimulation of mostly superficial,attention-grabbing images can leave afeeling of underwhelm when confrontedwith a truly significant image. It’s a realshame.However, we cannot overlook thepositives, personally I have connectedwith people and gained opportunities Iwould’ve never have had found let alonebeen accepted for without it. The nextfew years when the dust starts to settle,we will hopefully find an integration ofboth, but I do believe the physicality of anartwork will still be of great importanceand sought after, the digital is a way toenhance rather replace it, or so I hope.Lewis Deeney scapeCONTEMPORARY ART REVIEWLand
We have really appreciated the multifacetednature of your artistic research and beforeleaving this stimulating conversation wewould like to thank you for chatting with usand for sharing your thoughts, Lewis. Whatprojects are you currently working on, andwhat are some of the ideas that you hope toexplore in the future?Lewis Deeney: Thank you and likewise, yourquestions have been insightful and thoughtprovoking. I discuss my paintings a lot, andalways appreciate well formulated questionsthat force to me take a new perspective onmy work.Currently I’m preparing for my first art fair laterin the year, which is exciting. I have alsorecently exhibited in Miami as part of a groupshow, Interplay: Geometric Abstraction at 33Contemporary Art Gallery and from that mypainting Awakening has been included in theLunar Codex Project, which plans to digitise thework of 30,000 contemporary creatives andcompose a digital archive that will be physicallysent and stored on the moon for futuregenerations, or maybe aliens, to discover inthousands or millions of years. I am supergrateful to be a part of such a ground-breakingproject.Creatively I plan to expand my practice into thethird dimensions, making public artworks, Ihave many ideas brewing for them which I planto execute next year. As always, I am workingaway on paintings, my intentions are to revisitmy Chaos and Order series.scapeCONTEMPORARY ART REVIEWLand Special Edition
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