“Finally, a generation using YouTube the way God intended.”
“End of Povery”, written by Ryan Kamstra and performed by Tomboyfriend, video was edited with YouTube clips of teenagers from all over the world, dancing in their basements.
I like so much that the colours I use in my paintings come from the ground. It seems a more tangible sort of reality than the realism of representational paintings. I see it less like a limited palette and more like the only palette I could know, living on this earth, and the palette that I could get the best answers from.
I remember first going to Youtube when it had just started. The first thing I looked up was “whales”. I really had a craving to look at some whales. And like everyone else, I went on from there. It all looked so much to me like a palette, just like the “real” high quality palette of pigments you get from the ground. After years, as a painter, of thinking about small human gestures, I was able to see a bigger portion of that rainbow, completely undirected by me, and completely of our world.
I would work with Tomboyfriend on shows and projects. When I heard this song, I thought to try out this palette of ordinary human gestures. I focussed on basement hues and teenagers.