trevor brown interview by sloan freer, 2004 - conducted by email - unedited text

BRUISE BROTHER

Trevor Brown is Britain's most controversial artist, fearlessly exploring taboos from violent misogyny to extreme S&M and beyond.

By rights, Trevor Brown should be one of British art's greatest treasures. His surreal images of twisted childhood innocence and medical fetishism are exquisitely beautiful as they are confrontational - candy-coloured nursery rhymes to JG Ballard and Hans Bellmer. But although his work is every bit as brilliant and imaginative as, say, Jake and Dinos Chapman's, Brown is largely unknown in his UK homeland. Quite simply, the sheer honesty and bbravery of his vision means he's never likely to become part of Saatchis approved elite and their socially acceptable brand of outrage. Yet since swapping repressive Britain for the multi-sensory delights of Japan in 1993, the former graphic designer has flourished as an underground artist. Flitting between explicit S&M line drawing and his signiture airbrush and oil dolls, he's turned into a cult darling, and his darkly humerous artwork is now snapped up by a growing band of savvy libertines. Brown's latest book Li'l Miss Sticky Kiss features paintings of a pig-tailed Lolita in various cute'n'warped scenarios. It's arresting and provocative, made even more startling by the fact that young Sticky Kiss sports a mysterious black eye.

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As someone who has dolls and doll parts all over the house, I don’t find your interest in dolls unusual. But for the benefit of those who don’t share this passion, what is it about dolls that fascinates you?

My interest in dolls i suspect very different to almost all other doll collectors. I think my main fascination is with their innate emotive power. The same doll can provoke anything from vapid sentimentality to sheer horror. They are just pieces of plastic but appear to be the most powerfully evocative objects in existence. All other figurative and symbolic representations lack these inherent strengths ...except of course religious icons, which i also have a bit of a fascination with.

Dolls have a sinister quality (look at the dolls in Barbarella, she thinks they’re so cute, but soon realises they’re lethal death machines) - don’t you agree? Please explain why.

Maybe it's something to do with the fact they can be 'animated'. The head and limbs can be moved ...or even pulled off. The imagination comes more into play with dolls. So no surprise they develop almost autonomous characteristics. They come to life.

Your work is like a candy-coloured mutation of Hans Bellmer and JG Ballard. When did you become aware of these two people and how have they influenced you?

I guess i was about 15 or 16 when i found JG Ballard paperbacks. I loved his early science fiction novels but got blown away completely by 'Crash'. The impact of that book is still influencing my work even now! Aestheticised violence or, to use a Japanese SM scene phrase, abnormal beauty. Hans Bellmer i discovered later. Very much admired, needless to say, but perhaps not such a conscious influence. I think the same for all those great artists. Their work is more intimidating than inspiring. There's no hope of ever painting like Dali so i chose more realistic aspirations or take inspiration from unconnected sources (pornography for example).

I’ve read that you don’t consider yourself a good artist, but on the contrary I think it’s your ability as an artist that has partly generated the shock value of your work. These are images of dolls rendered so lovingly and realistically that we (the viewers) transfer life onto them. Do you think that’s the case?

I think it's still the case that i'm not a good artist. I'm very aware of the shortcomings of my drawing and technical painting ability even if few other people are. So i'll immodestly suggest the strengths of my work must lie elsewhere, to a lesser or greater extent. The concept, composition or the combination of elements (unexpected juxtapositions?) effecting a perceived 'shock value'? And i think what separates me from other artists aiming for the same effect is that my intent is not actually shock but beauty (so, yes, my images are painted with love).

Going on from that, most kids go through a phase of taking their toys to pieces. Did you do that as a child?

Quite possibly. My memory is absolutely atrocious though. I can recall next to none of my childhood. And i guess i've forgot to grow up too?!

How did dolls become fetishized for you?

Simply by my interest in dolls having to sit in close proximity to my other more perverse interests. The edges got blurred. The dolls got tainted and lost their innocence. My biggest fetish is for nurse dolls. I've no idea how my medical predilections came about however.

Did you have any habits or desires that could be considered weird as a child?

I think i was boringly normal. And, even now, i don't think i have any habits or desires that can be considered weird ...in my own opinion at least.

I used to dress up half my Sindy dolls as Star Wars stormtroopers and act out violent sex fantasies on the other Sindys using them - were there any sort of weird games you used to play as a child?

Haha! So this is what you young girls get up to?! Another female admirer of my work told me when she was a child she carried out identical-sounding complex drawn-out brutal rape scenarios with her Barbie dolls (and lucky Ken!) with her friend next door, hiding in a cupboard to act out their fantasies. The same Barbies also used for personal sexual gratification. I have no stories to tell myself though, sorry.

There are similarities between what you’re doing and what the Chapman Brothers are doing in the UK. When I see pics like Fellatio and Evil in Forbidden Fruit, it reminds me of their work (stuff like Tragic Anatomies and Fuck Face), is this purely coincidental?

I was doing heads with penises sprouting out of them long before Jake and Dinos made a career out of it!

What do you think about the Chapman Brothers’ work?

I'm a huge fan! I love the humour in their work. I'm not so keen on their two-dimensional things but all their sculptural output is amazing. The 'penishead' similarities no doubt entirely coincidental, although i wonder now if they are finally aware of my own work. I guess not.

Society these days is obsessed with medical procedures, plastic surgery to attain fleshy perfection. In London we see women with big black eyes on the Tube, looking like victims of crime, but instead they’ve just had surgery and they’re flaunting their richness. Those black eyes are a symbol of elitism, of wealth. Society fetishizes perfection and sterile medical procedures. So doesn’t society just do exactly what you’ve been criticized for doing anyhow? And why do you think that is so?

Society is always full of double-standards. In my own inept naive way i take pleasure in highlighting these inconsistencies and/or forcing re-evaluations of such inbred hypocrisies. My new book of paintings is of the same small girl with a black eye. No doubt most people in England, because of media fixations, are immediately going to jump to the conclusion she's a victim of child abuse. But who said so? She looks happy. The black eye is just there as a permanent fixture without any explanation. As i've said many times before: anyone putting dark violent connotations on my work is really just exposing the sick states of their own minds rather than mine. And, of course, these same individuals get extremely annoyed when i say this!

Seems to me, once you get away from your early, line drawing obvious S&M pics, your work has actually become more S&M. Your doll pics and young girls are more an exploration of the real dark truths of S&M than any of your explicit S&M stuff. The idea of ugly is beautiful, pain is pleasure. The beauty of fragility. The idea of a bruise or cut not being a symbol of violence but being a symbol of love, in the same way as youngsters show off their love bites. A bruise is a monument of extreme emotion, be it pleasure or pain, in an S&M sense to touch a bruise is an exquisite reminder of the act involved and the person involved. Therefore a bruise becomes beautiful.

You don't need me to say anything do you? I reckon you could have written this whole Trevor Brown feature yourself. You don't need my boring contributions here.

Do you think this is true?

Yes. I can follow the reasoning without difficulty. In Japan images of violence and beauty are interwoven to a greater extent - particularly in the realm of rope bondage. It's no surprise that after my exposure to this different cultural set of sensibilities my own treatment of rendering such ideas changed. In fact, as you rather perceptively pointed out, i was actually trying to get away from drawing SM images but ironically only moved into deeper levels of it.

What do bruises etc mean to you in your pictures?

For me a kind of sentimentality. Same as seeing a girl crying. An emphasis of fragility and therefore beauty.

Regarding the elitism of the UK S&M scene, Torture Garden etc. Having experienced it myself, it seems that only those people who the ‘in’ fetish crowd dismissed as disgusting low lives actually understood what the scene was really about. The S&M fashion “elite” just liked to pose, they didn’t understand. What pushed you away from the scene?

I was never really in the scene to start with. I hung around the edges. I had bad experiences with a few magazines and people within the scene (not Torture Garden i hasten to add). So that pushed me away from that scene ...and England too. I've since learned that bullshit is not something specific to the UK fetish scene tho.

Have you had any actual S&M experiences? Not just from an artistic point of view but personally.

No, never tried. Never had the opportunity. I'm a baby anyway.

Do you think it’s easier for people to condemn your work outright, than try to explore it and decide for themselves how it makes them feel? ie label it and reject it as disgusting immediately as a protective device, to protect them from themselves and what they might potentially learn about themselves through your art?

This always seems to be the case with people who attack me. The fact that people do get so worked up to an extreme extent in attempting to condemn and dismiss my work only affirms the validity and strength of it? Of course it'll happen one day but as yet i've yet to actually receive or read a coherently argued invective against my work free of knee-jerk reactionism and self-conscious indignation.

I understand you’ve always had an obsession with collecting stuff, one example being items on serial killers (us too, we bought all the papers the day Myra Hindley died). Are you still an obsessive collector, and if so, what do you collect? And what is - in your opinion - the thing that people would regard as being the weirdest?

Yes, i was guilty of keeping pedantic scrapbooks on Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, among other pet topics, while i was living in England. The info-addict in me now mostly sated and overwhelmed by the internet. So my archivist activities vainly devoted to documenting Trevor Brown! This interview will doubtless immediately be tidily catalogued and filed away after completion! I guess that could be regarded as weird by some people (but i bet they've also entered their own names into internet search engines). The only thing i collect now is nurse dollies. I have maybe around fifty. I'm fussy about which ones i add to the collection.

Why the interest in serial killers?

Same as anyone else's prurient interest in them. I think there's some reluctant admiration or envy involved. Like they're living consummate lives of ultimate gratification. The reality invariably much sadder, messier and lacking in fulfilment. They've not got the answer.

Do you have a particularly ‘prized’ serial killer item in your collection? If so, what is it and why?

Haha, no! Ian Brady's 'Gates of Janus' book the nearest to a prized serial killer artefact i possess. I'm interested in the philosophy of serial killers, not in their glorification.

Have you tried Japanese rope bondage with your wife? Did you like it?

Never tried. I'd like it, she'd hate it!

Is it true you and your wife were asked to model for Araki and that you declined? Why?

Not directly asked by Araki himself. But a magazine was doing regular spreads of photographs by Araki featuring 'unusual' couples and we were asked if we wanted to appear in it. The series followed the same sequence of documenting normal daily life, snaps taken around the couple's home town and then progressed to a bedroom scene. Cut!!! Forget it! There's absolutely no way Konomi (my wife) and i would agree to that, whatever the fee offered! I'm the most camera-shy person in existence. Perhaps notoriously so now as i systematically turn down all magazine feature offers etc when a photograph is insisted upon.

Your wife is a celebrated teddy bear maker. Everyone asks you the stupid question of what she thinks of your work (as if she should be disgusted or something), but it strikes me that there’s something symbiotic about your relationship. Does her work influence you? Does your relationship with her manifest itself in your art at all, like say the way Mark Ryden’s family can be seen in his pics (since you yourself have been compared to Ryden in the way you both twist traditional interpretations of children and children‘s things)?

I believe Mark is now divorced and separated from his children who clearly inspired a lot of his work. I'm curious to see what effect that will have. Konomi has had an immeasurable influence on my work too. She's the real Trevor Brown?! All too often i am pleading "Give me an idea!". And even when i'm working autonomously she'll oversee what i'm doing and interject with her own criticisms and thoughts ...which i do actually find useful, even if i choose to ignore them. So it is very much a symbiotic relationship, except for the fact i have almost no influence on her teddy bears (that's why she's more hugely successful than me?)

I read that you had a massive porn collection when you lived in Brighton. What’s your favourite porn? If it isn’t too much of a personal question, what are the prerequisites for you getting off?

Pornography is still a big interest for me. I've failed to grow out of it. I think, among other things, i said before it was the 'glib smiles' i found appealing. That is still more or less true. I like the way pornography exists in a fake world of it's own divorced from reality. And only has moments of potency when reality seeps back in. Moments of genuine sexual ecstasy amidst the acting. Or the model caught shooting an "ouch, that hurts" daggered glance at her assailant. Such moments are priceless. Max Hardcore stuff can be very good. But i only get off on it if the girl is desirable for me.

Regarding your art, would you like the pics to come to life? If the pics did come to life (particularly those such as Piss Fairy, which I understand you have a particular liking for) what would you do with the girls?

I don't think i'd like any of my wonkilly drawn girls to come to life. I did, however, run a 'Trevor Brown art look-alike contest' on my website a year ago. One of the entries for that, who does look very much like several of my paintings, immediately became a very close friend (e-friend?). And strangely enough i don't have any wildly perverted fantasies about her. I'm getting old i guess?!

Medical settings, clinical yet at the same time cuddly. The fragility of the human body is its beauty. Is this the case in your mind?

Yes. Vulnerability = delicateness = femininity = beauty. Something like that. Though i'm not completely sure why i've sexualised clinical settings so much. I'm actually petrified of hospitals and blood etc.

Is there any specific personal incident that can explain your medical/accident victim fetish?

None!

Just Like A Cunt: pics like this are viewed as misogynist by some. Yet, I just think it portrays women’s feelings about their sexuality and male exploitation. How do you feel about this? And why do you think it’s mainly men who throw the misogyny accusation at you?

The title IS misogynistic. It was an illustration for a Whitehouse CD cover - an extreme electronic band renowned for their misogynistic intent. My image, a girl's face being mauled and invaded by male hands, is by my own admission one of the more confrontational things i've done (simply because it was for Whitehouse) and somewhat misogynistic, although in a slightly more symbolic way. Perversely, this can be exciting for certain females. Or at least my image is open enough for a wider range of women to be able to relate to it as a representation of how they feel. I know the image has proved very popular with young female admirers of my work. If guys can't deal with it, that's for them to sort out or live with. Maybe, a bit dubiously, they think they''ll win the respect of the opposite sex by appearing to be in support of feminism or whatever? Or perhaps it's jealousy and anger that my work does attract the opposite sex? Ha, i'm so cynical!

You talk of “sinister innocence”. To me your work is saying that all innocence is eventually corrupted (a theme seen in a lot of Japanese movies such as Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive 2), that beneath the perfect, innocent veneer we are all potentially bad and rancid. Kind of like the images of the Jamie Bulger killers or Mary Bell, these kids who look pure on the outside, but are monsters on the inside... can you summarize what you are trying to say with your work?

'My work is about the human condition'! Yuck! I'm being sarcastic. I really really hate artist's statements and want to avoid falling in the trap of making one myself. Artists are ever so keen on creating a cloud of cryptic cerebral superiority to hide the fact their work has little depth or meaning. Personally i find it best and easiest to evasively state my work is saying nothing. The viewers are the best arbiters of what my work is about.

I know you’ll have been asked this a million times before, but... how do the accusations of paedophilia that have been thrown at your work make you feel?

Tired and bored now. I don't think it ever bothered me that much. Im not going to permit people tell me what i can and cannot paint. And it's ineffective as an insult as i really don't actually have any sexual interest in preteen girls. Just because i paint it doesn't mean i personally like it. (I'm not into SM, or hospitals, or little girls...)

Your work is so imaginative, you make even commonplace ideas magical and surreal. What inspires you?

I think you have to be slightly dissociated to allow the ideas to come through. Not be concerned about what other people think, not be concerned about what is expected of you and what art is supposed to be, not be concerned about success and money (this is the hardest!), not be concerned with the 'real' world and instead concentrate on exploring and creating your own little world. I take inspiration from everywhere, steal ideas and twist them to conform to my world.

Modern culture has sexualised children - you only have to listen to the music the kids are into with its sexually explicit lyrics and see the way almost every kid is done up like a Lolita. By that rationale, does that mean that your work is a form of social commentary that makes explicit something that‘s implicit in society? Do you think that’s why people feel so uncomfortable with it, because of its honesty and the fact that it draws attention to things people (especially Brits) would rather sweep under the carpet?

I don't know if my own work is a comment on it or a contribution to it. I suppose the former. If it wasn't there already i probably wouldn't be drawn to it so much. The hypocrisy and hysteria attracts my attention. And i'm brave or foolish enough to draw and paint what other people dare not even think. They can pretend sex doesn't exist until a person is eighteen. But that's more dangerous than simply acknowledging it (and i believe my art does acknowledge it in an unharmful way). Sweep it under the carpet, make it 'forbidden', kids are going to want to know about it. That solves 'the problem'?!

Reading the booklet that came with your postcard set The Black Box, you get some pretty extreme responses to your work. What’s the most extreme/strangest /most moving you’ve had?

I quoted from a letter from a girl (or guy?) in that booklet who said s/he survived rape as a child from a man who went on to be convicted for the murder of a dozen children. S/he said my art helped him/her face the troubling issues left by this. I don't know how true the story is, though i don't know why someone would want to make up something like that either. A number of other fans have intimated similar events so naturally that does make me feel deeply flattered and validates my work in the face of those other people telling me to die etc.

To me, your work is a perfect marriage of cultures. On the one hand there is the British influence - the gritty, dark humour that can only come from having lived in miserable old Britain. On the other there’s the Japanese (the Hello Kitty-style cuteness of your work, mixed with the out-there sexuality, and of course the fact that you choose to depict mostly Japanese-type girls). Do you think that’s the case?

Haha, yes! 'Miserable old Britain': it's funny how that phrase rolls so easily off the tongue. My personality is equally bleak and black. And no matter how pop, sexy, cutesy and technicolor my work is, my melancholic background and morbid humour cannot be hidden. I have embraced the new culture i now find myself in but it's very much Japanese culture strained through English eyes.

Outside of everything we’ve already discussed, are there other things/people you find particularly inspirational? Please explain why in your answer.

As mentioned, i take inspiration from almost anywhere. It may be the hairstyle of the girl sitting opposite me on the train. (Girls are always inspirational). I keep mental notes almost unconsciously. Then weeks later it may get married with a picture seen on the internet and emerge as a painting. I take in lots and lots and hopefully things come out eventually.

How important are (sleeping) dreams to you?

Difficult to answer. Sometimes i don't know where my ideas come from but i know they are familiar. My dreams, my past, all gets quickly forgotten. I think my brain doesn't work normally.

Ever used images from a dream or nightmare in your work?

Not consciously.

Are you getting any nearer in your wish to produce Trevor Brown dolls etc?

I doubt it. I thought my Li'l Miss Sticky Kiss creation was the most commercial, easily accessible and easily marketable thing i've ever done. However, when making token efforts to look for distributors for a limited edition paper doll i made of her i was a little shocked to get back letters proclaiming it was against the law to sell such an item (this from supposedly liberal underground distributors!). Bullshit of course but it displays the general attitude toward my work. I'm now totally pessimistic regarding the prospects of Trevor Brown vinyl figures.

I read that Leonardo DiCaprio had an extreme reaction to your work. What happened there?

I wish i was there to see it! It was at an exhibition i had at the Merry Karnowsky Galley in Los Angeles. Leonardo DiCaprio is a well known collector of so-called 'low-brow art' and i guess the fact he admires Mark Ryden greatly Merry thought it would be a good idea to give him a private viewing of my work. It wasn't such a good idea. Apparently, his cool blase front very quickly dropped and he flipped out completely in disbelief at what he was seeing - shocked and muttering i suspect he left very promptly. I was hugely amused hearing about this. Of course it would have been cool if he bought a painting but it's equally cool that he did not!

Tell me a bit about the new book, Li’l Miss Sticky Kiss. What’s the idea behind her?

Many artists here, Nara or Sorayama for example, have a very identifiable style or a famous figure they use repeatedly which lends itself to character design so everyone would immediately know that was Nara or Sorayama. My work didn't have that, so i created my own character and painted her obsessively for a period of one year. Little Miss Sticky Kiss! She rules! She's the cutest! The book is accordingly cute - it's like a children's book with a fluffy pink towel cover. My publisher has dubbed it the 'loli-cosplay bible' (lolita costume play). My old hardcore male fans are going to be very embarrassed going into a bookshop and buying this decidedly girlie book. (But then of course it's unlikely to appear in WHSmiths so they order copies anyway and it arrives in a plain brown envelope).