Artist of the Week
Seth Rowanwood
By Steve Venright
Posted August 7th, 2007.
MONDO: You're an artist who's managed to enter the commercial realm without any apparent aesthetic or ethical sacrifice. The "branding" you do tends to be for interesting companies and organizations and your artistry really seems suited to that kind of iconic expression. You've also used that kind of concentrated imagery to make what could be called spiritual and political statements. How do you think that all ties together? or does it?
Seth Rowanwood: All of it is symbolic: meaning and emotion, Logos in Eros, the Eros of Logos, or the dance of love and curiosity (uh... not trying to be flaky here).
I think everything we do is a spiritual exercise, or, should I say, exploration and expression. We come into the world of form to In-Form our awareness In Forums of mutuality, whether hostile or loving (I found out later that we belittle love for not including possible challenging expressions of it).
Even the biggest refusal to engage life is also inclusive. All you change is your experience of it. Some one recently told me, "If you see the world as black and white, you miss all the colour." Our best stories or films are riddled with conquests and tragedies, and yet we still love them.
So it's all there, or here, or over there. For me it was design and some mild politics. For others it would be something else.
MONDO: I first saw your work in the early nineties when rave culture was thriving in Toronto and the modern primitive movement was starting to come on strong. Do you see your work as being inspired or influenced by either of those mindsets?
SR: Yes and no. I took my own view and put it up against the others. I found that what was and still is common, as people "turn on," is ritual, transformation, walking through fear, through a portal to understanding or a broader perspective. Cognition as well as recognition of where you're at developmentally or spiritually or even physically. Being marked by some image or trial or even music.
MONDO: You have a strong interest in narrative and animation. There's a magical and transformative quality to the short animations I've seen you produce so far. What can we expect from you in this medium? Any projects in the works?
SR: At the moment I am in transition. It is now time to write and tell my own stories. I think I have gone as far as the commercial world would allow me, [in terms of] straight graphics. I have been struggling with art as a practical medium, and now I realize that art for the reason of pure expression is where I am going.
I am writing and getting ready to tell stories, stories that have been haunting me for years and some that have recently decided to come out of the woodwork of my unconscious. I think this began to happen because I started listening, instead of avoiding the pain of writing. I am looking at my shadow, and darker imagery, for some inspiration as I embrace that aspect of my own experience. If you look at "story" as an archetype, where would it be without the shadow? Funny how that works.
As an artist, I would be hard-pressed to say that I love suffering. But if I were to see life and all of what is possible as an expression of the height, breadth, and girth of our nature, I could not look away or ignore the emotional vistas and textures it contains. As I create my artwork it becomes an expression of gratitude, having come through the gauntlet feeling lighter and harbouring fewer attachments.
MONDO: Tell us about Gnostic Rocket!
SR: I played with Steve Barber (Gnostic Rocket) and Sean Beresford for the first time last year at the Urban Primitive Studio in Fergus. The second time [playing] was last week's event in the same venue. We had a great drummer this time 'round, Greg Woods (Great Wooden Trio). It was awesome. I had been missing live musical interaction with talented people. The kinds of artists that listen to it all, and then play into it and make the music even more beautiful. It was cosmic, fluid, tech-y, and trippy. No recording as of yet, but I think there may be a plan to change that. After wiping my tears, I didn't just feel reconnected to my own journey, I also had a chance to dialogue with the architect of it all. I'm thinking now, that may be worth recording and sharing.
MONDO: There's a psychedelic quality to your work. And like many of the best otherworldly innerspatial visions it has a high-definition ultralucid sensuality to it. Do you feel that you're drawing from areas of the mind that are accessible only under certain conditions: states of dream, trance, hypnagogic reverie, tryptamine illumination, for example... or is it just your standard, everyday awareness that's coming up with this stuff?
SR: Well, it is hard to say. What came first, the dream (or vision), or the dimension? Since they're only temporally sequenced because we like doing time, I would say all of it and none of it. We (not the ego we) all participate and precipitate or experience here. Whatever stuff finds its way into your perceptual intake, could be from a plant or a pizza slice, it doesn't matter, it is all a trip. Jim Woodring was just being himself when he created Frank.
When I was 10 years old, my déjà-vu face-plant into a paved driveway gave me the lowdown on the world. That's when I started looking for the trick box. Dreams and the raver headspace added more depth to the journey for sure, but it is all still the trick box of Maya.
Once you begin to discover who the observer behind your ego apparatus really is, the infinite nature of possible "awescapes" becomes very clear. Open your heart and eyes, disengage your mind and the truth presents itself politely from behind the veils of I's.
Don't believe in God? It doesn't matter. If there was such a thing it most assuredly wouldn't use belief to define itself, it would more than likely create beliefs to entertain itself. You know, the one that splices itself into infinity and in the resulting eternity plays peak-a-boo? Anything is possible, really. Look around, we're in a panoramic phantasmagoric-transecstatic vision with gravity and A.I. playing whatever role looks yummy today. The answer is 42, or is it 4:20? You decide.
Check out Seth at www.inklight.com
Urban Primitive: www.urbanprimitive.com
Steve Barber: Gnostic Rocket www.myspace.com/gnosticrocket
Greg Woods: Great Wooden Trio greatwoodentrio.com
Sean Beresford: Big City Cough www.myspace.com/bigcitycough