Artist Interview: Luke Hannam and The Power of the Popular Song
gowithYamo sat down with Luke Hannam to discuss his latest exhibition ‘The Power of Popular Song’, at 8 Holland Street’s new flagship space in St James’s.
February 22, 2024
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
What is the meaning behind the title of the show?
I’ve always found pop music quite a subversive concept, in the sense that it bypasses the intellect. So, the idea of the earworm… You could be singing let’s say Abba; you find yourself walking along singing ‘Mamma Mia’ but if someone asked you what was your favourite song, you probably wouldn’t say Mamma Mia. Pop music can get to you without the permission of the intellect, it bypasses your filter system. It ties into my work since I’m more and more fascinated in making paintings that have an instant, fleshy, visceral appeal, where you don’t get caught in that cobweb of intellectualism. And I think that’s a big departure from the shows that I did previously, where I was getting caught up in complex things, and it was getting in the way of the painting. One of the big things I realised last year was that I wanted to find something that had the immediacy of popular music, that enables me to paint with all the wildness that I need to paint.
And do you listen to music while you paint?
No, not in any overt sense. I have bursts where I put something on, but I prefer to generate music; I’m a songwriter, so it’s in my head, I don’t need to listen to it, it’s already in there. When I’m painting in that slightly synesthesia way, I can hear it as music, I can see it as sound.
Is there a strong link between how you make music and how you make art, and does that apply more to your painting than drawing?
The drawings are very meticulous, or they appear to be that way – they are actually done in a very fluid way, often first thing in the morning or last thing at night. They’re an emotional diary, that’s what I see those drawings as. I see the line as one of the most attractive communicative things you can do in mark-making. The line is about clarity, it’s clean, it’s a very important aesthetic thing. So they suggest narrative much more…
And these narratives… you mentioned you make the drawings early in the morning or late at night. Do the narratives originate from dreams?
They come from spontaneous thoughts. I have distilled this down to understanding it. I am wired to want to know what’s going on in terms of emotion, partly because there’s an anxiety there; I get frightened by other people’s emotions and I have a lot myself, so I am always trying to understand what people’s facial expressions mean, what all these tensions can be, whether good or bad. I am very attuned to micro-dramas, I think one of the reasons I’m very good at teaching is that I can get a sense of people when I’m working because I can emphasise so well. Sometimes that’s an overwhelming thing, and the way I distil it to calm down, but the way I settle my nervous system is by drawing. I’m not saying it’s therapy, but it brings me to the ground again. I’m a great people watcher.
So would the difference be that your painting explores emotion and feeling in a visceral way while the drawing explores these themes through narrative?
I think I can make it clearer than that. There are divergent ways of being. I don’t wanna go all mystic because I don’t know enough about it but I am a Gemini, and when I read about Geminis, they seem to be capable of having multiple, divergent selves. I have a very complex self, but also have a very playful child-self running alongside me at the same time. What I’m always trying to do as a painter, and what I have always wanted to do as a painter, is look for an idea that doesn’t get in the way of the painting process. If you come up with a very complex narrative, you can get so concerned with presenting the narrative idea that you lose touch with the painting.
I can see that in ‘The Naked Lovers’ - what is that painting about?
It’s nakedness and it’s as simple as that. When I was painting it, it was a great trigger for a really visceral, innate instinctive experience, which I’m trying to unlock in people. It’s like when I go on stage with the band, I want to create the most incredible energy in the room, I don’t want anyone to go home unsatisfied.
So your work is trying to tap into these innate human emotions.
Definitely, I’m trying to tap into the things that make us similar to each other, I’ve never been interested in differences. I’m interested in collections, collectives, and common denominators. I think the thing we know as songwriters is when you watch a big audience all singing along with something, although we are having unique experiences, we are more similar than anyone ever told us we are. We are dying to have that bond we want to come together, but we are always being told we are different. I think it’s a slight marketing trick, because then you can start selling people individual dreams, but really, as a species, we are looking to celebrate something together.
So, the shift between this series and your previous shows, ‘The God’s Body and The Devil’s Chain’ and ‘The Compass and the Rosary’, is the focus on capturing visceral emotion vs the more narrative approach that refers more directly to your works on paper?
People often describe my work back to me as seemingly being different, like it's pulling apart, and if people are constantly telling me that , then I start to believe it. It’s an illusion that they are pulling apart. The things that make them hang together are not obvious things, but they are there. It’s about emotional connection and I could explore it in multiple ways – I firmly believe that any idea about style has to constantly be challenged with your desire to try things out. Because to be creative you have to be surprising to yourself, and the problem with anything you do every day is that it turns into something you can get very proficient at. The problem with getting very proficient at things is that it ceases to be creative, so I use all these dimensional methods as ways of throwing the dice in the air, giving myself problems and challenges. Then the thing that holds it all together is the ‘Luke Hannam’ emotional state, and I will do it in any way I possibly can. There will be more ways in the future, I don’t mind change.
By ‘multiple dimensional ways’, do you mean the different mediums and forms your work takes? For instance, one painting is on a piece of corrugated metal; - is that challenging how we look at your work or challenging yourself and how you work?
No, I’m not challenging anybody, it’s just my playful way of acting. If you were a chef you might have your main things you make for the menu, but at the end of the day you might have a few things left over and you just knock something together. Creativity is a spontaneous thing; sometimes I’m in the studio and I see something, it presents itself as an opportunity and I allow myself to be quite anarchic. I suppose ultimately it’s to do something in response to anything that happens, it’s just me playing around with things. It’s as simple as that. Because it was a very non-conventional surface I had this real fascination with graffiti - I had just done the artwork for two of DJ Luke Una’s albums, and he said he wanted something with ‘the spirit of my work but more graffiti’ and the side of me that loves hip-hop wanted to do something more graffiti-based, and the corrugated iron fitted perfectly with that ‘trash’ culture and pop experience.
Graffiti is also quite immediate work, is that something you resonated with?
Yeah, there is that immediacy. I work very quickly and intensely, but I may work on a canvas for a long period of time. Each sitting, each moment, is quite intensely rapid, but then I’ll work on a painting for six or seven months or sometimes years. Each interaction is fast but doesn’t mean the painting reaches its conclusion that quickly. The company that you’re in can change the way you behave. So paintings are a bit like friends and materials are a bit like new encounters, and these new encounters produce situations where you can free up yourself. And I am, ultimately, looking to be as free as I possibly can.
It's very open-ended the way you work…
It has to be….
Does that open-ended nature relate to revisiting the same subject? For example, the boy on a bicycle is revisited in three different paintings here…
It’s the first time I’ve done a series of three, I’ve always tried as a maxim to never repeat myself. There is usually only ever one of anything. But this time the subject has become deeply stimulating and I think there will be more. It’s an image that’s not going away: I find it a joyful playful painting idea, and I love the spirit and I love the reaction that people have to it, which is equally joyous, deep, profound but also playful. It’s a symbol of hopefulness, to just go out and feel the wind in your hair.
Luke Hannam: The Power of the Popular Song is showing at 8 Holland Street's St James's location until 16th March.
