Mark Stewart & Peter Harris
A new visual art collaboration between founding member of The Pop Group & On-U Sound figurehead Mark Stewart + visual artist & painter Peter Harris ‘The post-punk Gilbert & George’
BombArt is a new visual art collaboration between founding member of The Pop Group & On-U Sound figurehead Mark Stewart, and the visual artist and painter Peter Harris; ‘the post-punk Gilbert & George’. An open-ended series of paintings that confront themes of identity, influence and history, the first incarnation of the BombArt project comprises ‘Hybrid Portraits’, a sequence of works that encompass aphoristic texts, countercultural icons and irreverent portraiture. In these paintings Stewart & Harris combine the sitter and the sitters influences in one ‘mutant’ depiction, merging together striking portrayals of Stewart with the likes of Michel Foucault, Andy Warhol, Isidore Lucien Ducasse (aka the Comte de Lautréamont), Joris-Karl Huysmans, the Comte de Saint Germain, Georges Bataille, Tristan Tzara, Samuel Beckett & many others. Discussing the conceptual underpinnings of the project, Stewart explains that BombArt is ‘the autopsy of a myth, staging encounters through time’, the product of a desire to capture ‘drastic realism’ and to ‘embrace the absurd’. Stewart & Harris have enlisted renowned pioneers in music and beyond for the project, including the likes of Bootsy Collins and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and plan for BombArt to be a continuously evolving space for their ideas. Their work to date is compiled and showcased on a new, official website, including their previous collaboration on The Pop Group video ‘Blood Money (Slow Thief)’. As yet unannounced actions, happenings and exhibitions are planned for the future.
Mark and Peter kindly answered some questions from Le Document
LD: How did you two meet and how did the collaboration come about?
Mark: I met Peter at the Horse Hospital, one of my favourite art spots.
Peter: And then we began talking about lots of different ideas.
LD: Mark we know you from your music career can you tell us about your art activity’s?
Mark: I've previously exhibited at Trajector Art Hotel in Brussels. That was just after I did an artist in residence show at The Western Front in Vancouver where they put you up in an artist's room and to my hyper excitement I found out that Burroughs and Bukowski had stayed in the same place!!!! Another exhibition was a Kunst Forum featured art provocation with Tiffany in Vienna which should be the next place for a live Bomb Art event. Then there was The Serralves Institute in Porto with Kenneth Anger and I was also asked by Banksy to take part in Dismaland, in fact he says I'm one of his favourite artists!
LD: Aside from Gilbert & George are there many duos in art that you approve of?
Peter: I'm not really a fan of ‘art world art’ or ‘artists’, but I love creativity and my favourite creative duos are Beavis and Butthead, Ray and Dave, Derek and Clive.
LD: I'm intrigued by the line, “taste is a form of personal censorship” — is this linked to Duchamp’s idea that taste is the enemy of art?
Mark: I leave my ‘neo slogans’ to speak for themselves, for me art is a question mark.
Peter: Art is the enemy of art depending on your taste.
LD: Question for Mark: Which records by The Pop Group are you most proud of? Is there one song of yours you’d be happy to be judged on?
Mark: Y
LD: Question for Peter: How is the project with Zsa Zsa Sapien progressing, when will we hear The Hi Fi Twins debut?
Peter: Thank you for asking (you are one of the few!) All the songs are finished and we are just waiting for some of them to be mixed by On-U Sound dub mixing maestro Adrian Sherwood but at the moment it’s not safe for us to visit.
LD: The work on your website looks like an opening move, what is the next stage of this project? Will there be more films?
Peter: Yes we have a film coming out soon.
Mark: The remote viewing at this virtual gallery is our first act of art scrying inspired by one of my heroes (also one of the hybrid paintings) the Comte de Saint Germain time hunter.
LD: Where do you fit in with the artworld, who do you see as kindred spirits?
Peter: Not sure, let's find out!
Mark: In Bali they have a saying “We have no art we do everything well”.
LD: Galleries and pubs have been reopening what places have you missed visiting or been most sad to see shut down?
Peter: To be honest the only art places I visit are because I have children and I feel duty bound to take them somewhere. Most of the time we prefer the cafe to the exhibitions.
LD: Who do you have faith in and what are you optimistic about?
Peter: No one and nothing.
Mark: Everyone and everything.
LD: I like the image of Lee “Scratch” Perry as Superman. What is Mr Perry like to work with / what are his super powers?
Peter: He is a ball of fire, the real thing, and his super powers must be his energy. Even at 84 years old he will have you up till 5 in the morning burning herb and painting and listening to the same song on repeat the whole time (heaven — except for the song bit!)
Mark: Every moment spent with him is magic. Everything he touches becomes a portal. He picks up a pebble and ordains it as a votive offering.
Hate Has Consequences (Mark Stewart/Count of St Germain)
2020, watercolour and acrylic on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm
