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PRESS RELEASESTOP 30 – R.Kelly Clipperton Music and Photography. Styling and Music. Writing and Producing. Everything I love to do overlaps, feeds from one to the other somewhat seamlessly, to the point where others need to tell me where one starts and another ends as I see it all to be one expression. One vision. One version. The impetus for this series of photos was the album It’ll End In Tears by This Mortal Coil. My head flooded with images as I kept thinking of this title. I then thought what a perfect thesis: take album titles and re-imagine them. No influence from the original album artwork, the band or the music, just let the title feed me ideas. As I’m not one to be subtle I figured let’s do 30 of them, like a Top 30 countdown… something I loved as a kid. I’d always look forward to the Thursday Countdowns, both the Top 40 stations and the Alternative ones, probably with similar anticipation that others look forward to Oscar night, who is going to climb up and who is going to make a dramatic fall. Perhaps and early example of what Reality Television has become. So in this Top 30 I took 30 titles; some famous, some not so, and full on “Kellified” them. Rio by Duran Duran turning into sun, sand, sweat, sex; Version 2.0 by Garbage - a woman post-plastic surgery admiring her new self; Katy Perry’s One of The Boys explores what she might have meant had she the balls, and Hotel California by The Eagles showing the less than desirable aspects of L.A.’s casting couch. Oddly It’ll End In Tears was the very last image I shot. I took me forever to find the moment that really fit that sentiment. It ultimately became a more universal and apocalyptic message with injured mermaids escaping the dying sea, not the one-on-one romantic notion that the title first brought to mind. I’m not a traditional photographer, entirely self-taught, and some of my mistakes have been my best images. I trust that part of myself implicitly. I take great pride in styling the whole shot myself from hair to make-up to costumes and props. I shoot film and build most of my shots after scanning them, as nothing I see in my head really exists anywhere. For example I don’t know any mermaids personally so for It’ll End In Tears I created them with shots taken at a wildlife park in Florida. The pink convertible in Highway To Hell was real but taking it out on an actual highway with naked men in it was not an option so I built the road in under them. Similarly for the Sports images, I couldn’t find… A) a locker room that would allow me to shoot provocative shots in it, nor B), locker rooms with neon bright lockers, so I made it happen in post. For my self-portrait, Out Of The Woods, I took images of horse’s legs; a ram’s horns and owl’s claws, and built the Minotaur/Centaur that you see dragging the schoolboys into the woods. That day was perfect synergy as I was hoping for a “light dusting of snow” (having booked the shoot weeks in advance with all involved), and I got it. The plexiglass was a two-fold choice. My last exhibit Order Will Keep You Calm, featured my work on maple, sheet metal and plexi. Though for me the sheet metal was the favourite, the plexi got the grandest response so in keeping with the music thesis here, I figured the plexi best represented the vinyl on which music was first pressed: reflective, glossy and sturdy. I thank all my friends, new and old, who graciously threw themselves into these photos with heartfelt abandon. I tend to work in a guerrilla style set up, never being a fan of controlled environments, so their enthusiasm and fearlessness were paramount. They put their trust in me and I’m indebted. Fittingly, Kelly and the Kellygirls, my band I started 8 years back has just released a “chapter round up”, if you will, in the form of an album/DVD called MMX. It too is an example of me overlapping as songwriter, stylist (built a whole bunch of those costumes…) and recently editor, having cut most of the music videos, documentary and all the live performance myself. When I was in my twenties I became resentful that the outside blood didn’t come flooding in my direction sooner, I now see that my ability to hone anything I put my mind to is my voice, is my reason. R.Kelly Clipperton Pentimento Fine Art Gallery In the tradition of Top 30 countdowns, visitors and patrons of the gallery were asked to rate their Top 10 favourite albums (or all 30 if inspired…) and a weekly update of the chart was complied, ultimately creating a Top 30 with a No. 1 as voted by you. R.KELLY CLIPPERTON ~ TOP 30 M1 M8 LW TW ALBUM 1 1 1 1 Violator * ^ biggest jump
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R.KELLY CLIPPERTON "Order will keep you calm" , FEB '10 One of the things I actually enjoy about getting older is self-actualization. Some folks probably had it all figured out at 20, but I’m a late bloomer in every way, and realizing great and finer details about myself as the years pass is invigorating and exciting. I love order. I need order. This is one of these new realizations. Though entirely obvious to those who’ve been close to me for years, I didn’t realize why I needed order until recently: it keeps me calm. The calming effect it gives me to see my CDs alphabetized, my photos in my album in chronological order, my toothbrush in the same place, lists, deadlines…. I believe the modern term for this is Anal Retentive or Control Freak, both of which are fantastically negative and I choose to ignore. I was born with a frenzied and chaotic personality and order allows me to get tasks completed. I’ve spent much of my life trying to figure out how I fit into the pastiche of socialization and creativity. In this ever increasingly detached world, I search for community and a sense of belonging even more than in my youth. That effortless fit into your tribe. My fascination with order, is evident in my earliest of works. A play that I wrote and directed in ‘91, brotherhood, was about a family with 4 kids and I insisted that the 20somethings look very similar. Hair colour, eye colour, height… It stemmed from photos I’d seen of famous families, noting how facially similar some were, to the point that I assumed their lives were effortless with this aspect in tact. These photos are an extension of my need for order and an expression of want for togetherness. Uniforms, resemblance, balance... In each image there is a slight element of distress, which enhances the notion that no matter what goes wrong, continuity will pull you through. In my darkest of dark places I see the simplicity of uniform to be lifesaving. People as a whole: their heart; soul; dreams; desires… are like puzzles, as cliché as that is… slowly assembled over time to reveal an actualized image. A complete picture. Sometimes pieces are bashed together that don’t fit. Often pieces go missing. Some are realized very early in life, some never. I love taking photographs that could be one of those pieces to someone: the subject, the audience but most of all, me. This body of work is me trying to fit a few more pieces in place, still looking for that world that seems effortless, searching for happiness.
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Kelly and the Kellygirls new album ‘Modernism’, MARCH '09
Artist: Kelly and the Kellygirls
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