Almost exactly 20 years ago, back in ’94, I was just graduating from college in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
I spent my days dividing time between the studio and crate diggin in
record shops like Volume, Bass Generator (Looney Tunes), Hitsville and
most importantly the, Chill Bill’s ‘Jam Records’.
By night I was djing at places like Buzz Club, Reds Bar and The
Purple Lounge in the poly, Planet Earth, The Drop and Fat Sams. I also
had a fun radio spot on a small station then called Ice FM (even had
Guru, Jeru, Big Shug etc doing drops for us!).
Good times with good music and good people!
For me at that time, pretty much everything music wise was hip hop.
Some of the nights I might mix in a bit of RnB or something funk
flavoured, but mostly straight up, jeep beat east coast hip hop! Heads
around me were all hip hop too. It was an obsession in Newcastle then
and Bill at ‘Jam Records’ had a great ear for what to bring in and
usually managed to get vinyl pre-release date.
At that time, I had a friend who was working at MTV in New York, she
came to visit one day and could not believe that we were getting New
York hip hop on import vinyl in Newcastle, UK before it had even hit the
streets there.
At this point I want to give a shout to some of the other hip hop
creatives who were living in the city at that time who I am still in
touch with and who are still, 20 years on, trailblazing for the culture
with their own take on things:
Ken Masters (Emcee)
Poet Curious (Emcee/Spoken Word/ Deejay)
Matt Gillis (Fashion/T shirts/Murals/deejay)
The thing was, my other focus at that time was a huge contradiction
to this life. Hip Hop was the ultimate ego driven art form. It was
battle minded and outwardly aggressive: while I was out dj’ing in clubs,
promoting this ‘Tim Dog’ message, I was also spending time each day
reading about and developing the spiritual practise of buddhism.
How could I resolve these worlds and bring the amazing energy I saw
in each together? I didn’t want to be a hypocrite then (now I am quite
happy to be. Shit, nobodies perfect!)
The result culminated in graffiti based work that directly challenged
my ego while also pandering to it. I used thousands of individually
hand made paper flowers, applique quilting, techniques that are
associated more with craft than with high art (though that debate seems
to have long disappeared). The work was more transcient and less
‘object’ based. The techniques would be considered more ‘feminine’ and
directly at odds with the macho hip hop culture then.
It has been a long time since I really thought about this work, so I
do not want to write too much about it here now, but I recently came
across the images and thought it would be a good opportunity to share
them. My work has been through many changes and is still changing to
this day. I hope you enjoy this work and would welcome any feedback.
1994 Ashwan installation ‘Me, Myself and I’ 38ftx16ft Origami flowers, applique quilt and mirror tiles.
Floor detail from1994 Ashwan installation ‘Me, Myself and I’ 38ftx16ft Origami flowers, applique quilt and mirror tiles.
An
image that was used by ‘The Evening Chronicle’ in an article about the
show, showing both the floor and the applique quilt reflected in the
mirror tiles.
The above image shows the graffiti quilt. It was a backwards graffiti
text, so when it was reflected in the mirror tiles, you would see the
graffiti written the right way around, along with a reflection of
yourself. Obvious references to the story of Narcissus here and
re-inforced by the choice of media for the floor piece.
Special thanks to all the fashion students for help folding those
damn things and massive thanks to Matt Gillis for helping me get the
quilt made!
In the below image you can see the graffiti text on the quilt is actually written backwards:
I did many of these installations around the city. Unfortunately many
of the images I have either did not survive or were really low quality.
You can see from the way the images above are ‘pasted’ together that we
did not have photoshop back then!
Somewhere I think I may have some slides with other images on. When I dig these out, I will add them.
Below is one of the few decent shot I have of other installations along the ‘Me, myself and I’ idea.
Galleries are often critical that my work can seem too varied. They
say that it can confuse the collector. While I want my work to be
collected, the most important thing is progress and making good art! I
hope this helps explain some of the journey I have been on so far.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
http://www.ashwan.co.uk/blog/
