“Hard Knock and Private Lives” by Adrian Wilson
Title:
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
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Adrian Wilson
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- Photon
Symposium:
Artist Statement:
This piece of work was commissioned by Creative Review Magazine to illustrate an article on Film Director John MacKenzie. He had directed many television and feature films including ‘Long Good Friday’, ‘The Honorary Consul’. and ‘The Fourth Protocol’, but was having difficulty in Hollvwood with his new film ‘Hard Knock’.
The film was typical MacKenzie – a thriller with a murky plot about two fathers of murdered sons who wanted to find out why the deaths happened. After 8 months of work on the film Columbia cancelled the contract (oddly coinciding with the departure of David Puttnam from the same company) and MacKenzie was now being forced to look for backers and in the meanwhile make his living working in the more lucrative advertising market.
The image it elf is framed by the feature film format which is decaying and weak at the edges, symbolising the insecurity of film making as the accountants, politicians and big businesses begin to dictate to the industry from the outside. Inside the frame all is turmoil, MacKenzie is overlooking the scene and feels he is just another commodity in the financial media market. Safe in the distance is Hollywood, distanced from reality. On the right hand side of the frame lies MacKenzie’s shattered dream. The stark setting and the two bullets on a pile of diamonds are all part of the ultimate ·hard knock’ for the director.
Puttnam and MacKenzie have now bizarrely become the fathers with the murdered sons in their own twisted plot.
Private Lives, Quante! Video Paintbox and Sharp CX 5000 Colour Copier
This image was produced as part of my own investigation into the surreal use of contrasting scales and textures within my work. The face is a widely differing yet very uniform image, however, variations which exceed individual mental limits become classed as deformaties. This image displays physically impossible features and is somehow acceptable to the viewer because of that very impossibility. Feelings of pity or sympathy for the owner of this face are non-existent, it becomes viewed purely as a piece of art.
[Catalogue text editted after communication with Adrian Wilson in 2024]
