Radical Art #Paul D C Kindersley

This month Radical Postures caught up with Paul D C Kindersley at his humble abode in Vauxhall to talk about his art. Having met him briefly two years ago at a club, in the few minutes we did talk about his art it gripped me as slightly controversial but a subject I found interesting enough to want to know more about. 

First of all Paul what inspires your art?

I’m mostly inspired by films because it’s something that everyone can relate to and in particular the complete fakeness of it the whole idea of glamour in film. When you watch something glamorous on TV and film and the reality is it’s not like that at all. What people think is glamorous never existed in the first place.

Everything back then was more controlled, for instance there’s a book called Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Angers; it’s amazing. It details all the scandals of the Hollywood stars from the 20’s to the 60’s and 70’s it was just as bad then as it is now with minor celebrities and probably worse because now stars know they’ll get caught out with things. Hollywood Babylon has pictures of really famous actors of that time getting out of taxis and flashing themselves exactly like Paris Hilton, people are like oh my god that Paris Hilton is awful. Everybody seem to think celebrities back then were so glamorous and sophisticated but actually things were just hidden better.

I like when things go wrong in trying to be glamorous and I think that it is so great that people are striving for this Hollywood image which they think exists but it doesn’t at all, it’s just the trying to achieve it I find fascinating. I like films trying to be glamorous and failing completely I think there’s something nice and human in that, its endearing.

I am also inspired by melodrama and people that are extremely emotional in reacting to certain situations.

All my artwork is basically about the fact that when you are at home as a fan you are never going to achieve the same results; it is the failure and the low budget aspect, trying to achieve something that never existed. 

Talk us through the process of your art?

 I’m always writing things down anything that comes into mind; lines from films and what people say I tend to write it all down in my book. I have a lot of these ‘jotty’ books where I just jott anything and everything down for inspiration, it helps. People intrigue me especially actors becoming successful but failing actors are great too. The attempting of being glam and the reality is it becomes a failure and in my work, it becomes art, it should be praised and not mocked.

Every piece of art I create is always researched, for example I created the octopus woman on my Aunts tile, and my idea came from watching some 70’s porno film. I found the women lead characters had these humongous bosoms and the guys were weedy in comparison I thought it was fabulous. I am fascinated by 70s sex films, they have men as weak and feeble and create the women characters as dominant and masculine. The style, music and costumes make it unique and very different to other types of cinema. An example of my favourite film is ‘Beyond the Valley of The Dolls’ created by Russ Mayer it’s about a girl band and a sequel that has nothing to do with the original film.

I love films that push boundaries, films that are trashy horror which make it obvious it’s failing. I can’t engage with special effects, I prefer something with someone holding a plastic Godzilla to CGI big budget, to have minimal cost makes it more imaginative and creative.

I find working to a deadline and a goal gives you more pressure to create better work. I prefer working long hours and forming new ideas.  More ideas evolve from the previous ideas which become greater and even more inspirational.  My work has messages for people and they come from taking my ideas and thoughts and creating something new, bold and glamorous.

What is your most radical piece of art?

A pivotal piece of art for me, you might find it radical, is inspired by a girl I met at university I thought she was very glamorous we got talking and she gave me an old passport picture of herself , I’m no longer in touch with her. I love the idea of just about anyone becoming famous and so I printed the picture out onto 100’s of cushions and submitted them as my final university project, she’s not aware of the fact but I’m sure she wouldn’t object.

One example of an art piece which I cherish is my horror pop up, it’s a pop up of a vampire taken from a ‘Hammer’ Horror film. The early stage of creating this was watching Hammer films and being captured by the vampires the creepiness and sexual tension on screen with female characters.  The characters fail to frighten me but I’m sure in the old days it must have scared the living daylights of people and so I decided to expose and enlarge the idea of failure. I hired out nude actors to interact with these pop-ups , it was pretty surreal.

Have you got any long term goals for your art?

I just want to do larger installations again because I enjoy it the whole process, I don’t have a studio or anything at the moment so in the meantime I am just creating and coming up with small drawings, I have previously put my work in big galleries and it has been sold out, so ideally that is the direction I want to go in.

How would you go about getting funding?

I make art from my money, people say its make money from art but in fact for me it’s the other way round. For income I do life modelling which I adore its great fun to pose and be a work of art.

How does the gallery get in contact with you?

You have to keep going at it and getting involved, work with other people and make contacts. I help exhibitions which I’m interested in and I meet a lot of important people that are in the right circle, resulting in making friends and getting the help which benefits you.

Where can we see some of your brilliant work?

I will be in Tainted Love-an exhibition at Transition Gallery in May (www.transitiongallery.co.uk)

and also Idle Worship-which opens on the 17th of March-private viewing 16th 6 till 8pm at Centre For Recent Drawing (www.c4rd.org.uk)

For more information check out Paul’s work, especially the very entertaining Youtube make-up tutorials which personally, I find useful:

www.paulkindersley.co.uk

www.youtube.com/thebritisharecumming

www.getthealbertlook.blogspot.com/

Interview by Taz V Pictures by Asma Attack