"Every item of clothes we wear restricts our movements... I prefer to be free"
Kevin Sharkey
The disclaimer on the video says "Warning- Contains Explicit Scenes of Nudity!", but the content itself probably warrants something a little milder, like "Slight Caution- Potentially Silly". It shows a naked man who walks around his studio preparing to make a painting. I say preparing, because it isn't until past the 3 minute mark that any paint actaully hits the canvas. And I say hits, because he throws it, which his wont as an abstract expressionist born 50 years too late. All of which suggests that we should view the preparation and process as seriously as the final product.
On top of being incredibly free and producing miserable paintings, Kevin Sharkey is also a very mildly onanistic softcore porngrapher now. This ludicrous video on his website which shows him painting while naked is a natural progression from the automatic way he makes his artwork. Now, I'm offended neither by his nudity or the idea of an artist making a slightly boring video of themselves working, nor is it my intention to spend too much time writing about somebody whose work I just don't like, but if I thought this kind of thing would be addressed by responsible and serious art journalists I probably wouldn't bother, but the arts in Ireland, or maybe to be more direct, the only art in this country that receives any significant media coverage, is this kind of pseudo-spiritual baffoonery.
If I thought this video constituted something challenging, I would probably be at least interested in it- but as it stands I'm just confused by its mindless self-indulgence.
It also strikes me as being a baffling side-effect of Catholicism that artists can believe splashing paint on a canvas and chanelling their emotions can see those same emotions transferred to their work, like their materials going through a similar transubstatiation as the body and blood of Christ. All well and good for the messiah, but in a commercial artist, it borders on obscene and is surely a symptom of taking art faaaaarrrr too seriously.
Thank Christ the video loops back to the start when it's over, I didn't know what to do with myself after sitting through it.
