TONY BAKER  :  artist  +

the text

Beauty has always been there, raising its head above the fissures of greed and destruction - often silent, its whispers scream and writhe as the deaf ears of compliance conspire to drown its words in an all-consuming blindness of fear and loathing.

And in the dystopian landscape of the present day, where the prevailing ugliness of hate stokes the fires of anger, that, for years, have been left smouldering in the darkness of the collective psyche, it is all the more essential that beauty continues to permeate the patina of this tenuous existence, eschewing as it does, the slings and arrows of bigotry that have ingratiated themselves, like a cancer, to the language of rhetoric, (whose echoes we hear all around us, slipping off the tip of everybody's tongue) - a bitter lexicon of words force-fed into the mouths of the populace by the manufacturers of opinion and the agents of hate*, that has grown to become an insidious mantra pitching neighbour against neighbour, and friend against friend. For where there's hate there is money, and where there's money there's greed, and in the sanctuary of the belly of the beast, hate is allowed to fester and grow, as its stench rises to the surface in a belch of ignorance and xenophobic malevolence, spewing out of the mouth of the giant behemoth.

(*by the news corporations intent on twisting and falsifying the facts for their own ends, and by governments desperate to secure their authority at the expense of the people they represent)


Yet, in the gloom, amidst the debris of of our own doing, a glimmer breaks through the surface - a thin thread of salvation that connects us to a former world of hope and innocence - a tentative reminder that without the dark, there would be no light, and without ugliness, there would be no beauty - for after all is said and done, beauty is still very much in residence. Invisible to the eyes of the many, and made mute by the hue and cry of the mob, it is the role of the artist to seek it out and present it to the world, to dress it in the finery of mark and gesture, and of colour and shade - and through casting the spotlight onto the details of our existence, on its warts and its pustules, on the ugly, the everyday and the mundane, the artist makes sense of the confusing and contradictory messages that have become our daily diet, and reassures us that even the abhorrent is merely the shadow that enables us to fully appreciate the light.

And although it is a given, that the juxtaposition of opposites creates the necessary friction that sparks each other's flame, the coexistence of these two adversaries, is not, however, a marriage made in heaven, but one of constant conflict, where the resoluteness of beauty must remain steadfast as its nemesis continues to hurl stones and spears, insensitive to the damage left in the wake of its quest for both self gratification, and the ultimate preservation of its perceived authority. And as the dream collapses, and the vile representatives of hatred crawl out of the floorboards of complacency, spreading their foul disease, and contaminating all in their path, it is left to the purveyors of beauty (the artists, the poets, the writers and the musicians) to pick up the pieces and carry the flag for the pure and the sublime, as they stick their fingers up to the towering Goliath of the ruling body standing in their midst.

By defining their own notion of beauty, these champions of the esoteric share their idiosyncratic vision with those most susceptible to the unfaltering barrage of hard line polemic, and offer the raw power of original thought, in all its splendid diversity, as an eclectic alternative to the jingoistic arrogance of corporate doublespeak. (and) Unlike the systemic modus operandi of institution and authority, whereby the black and white of dogma creates a faux security of simplistic doctrine (learnt by rote and recited in chant), the artist seeks to debunk all notions of a prescribed panacea, and instead, presents truth through the synergy of individual language and the nuance of its various tongues. In this respect, truth, and thereby beauty, is implicit in the vagaries of suggestion, where enlightenment can be discovered lingering in the spaces in between offering tacit understanding without need of explanation - simply letting us join the dots to reach our own conclusion.

At its most vital, beauty is the essence of life itself, created both by design and neglect - nurtured by nature and crafted by human hand, it is the air that we breathe and the food in our belly, it's the discarded pizza box flattened under the feet of a passerby, and the lake of blossom collected around the base of a tree, it is the promise of all eventualities and the final kiss of destiny yet, although it is the sworn adversary of the repugnant and the grotesque, it can still fall prey to the fumes of their tainted breath, where, at times of weakness, it becomes overcome by the temptation of avarice desiring that everything it touches should turn to gold.  And as swathes of golden light burn out all trace of shadow, the harmony of the natural and inherent is replaced by the manufactured and ostentatious - a facile gaudiness that betrays the purity of its intention through an insensitivity towards both balance and the natural order of things, where surface beauty reveals the cracks of the malevolent forces lying beneath. 

This fake beauty of contrived opulence, sitting as a trophy on a mantlepiece amongst the ephemera of existence, provides concrete evidence that all that glitters is not, in fact, gold, but instead the sham of self desire - an un-satiated yearning that invests everything it has in the words of the charlatans we find parading on street corners masquerading as experts, of whose poetry we often confuse with both truth and fact.

And, in these temples of greed, where vanity knows no pain, the tricksters and illusionists, with their smoke and mirrors, hold the most heinous disregard for the sanctity of the very truth that they purport to defend. The libretto of their claims written in the pen of quill and feather, scratched into the surface of fine vellum and adorned with colour and gold leaf, unashamedly declares it's broken promise of unadulterated pleasure with the same assumed authority as the self-appointed doyens of taste that make their fortune through the supply of new clothes to an undiscerning clientele of emperors, courtiers and the nouveau riche. 

And where self-gratification takes a hold, there is little space left for truth - as a commodity, its value plummets, only to be replaced by a tapestry of lies and fabrication whose propensity for unbridled elaboration can paint a highly desirous picture that far exceeds the realms of mundane reality. This virtual beauty, designed to flatter and sycophantasise, offers its panacea on a plate - served by corporations and governments in a collusion of power and deceit, it quells the individual spirit, silencing its questions and putting sugar in its mouth. And as the light and shadows flicker across the screen in a ballet of words and image disguised as truth, all semblance of dissent appears to fade, it's cries but a breath extinguished by the storm.

But resistance is a resourceful creature, and unity its trusted friend - and as the jaws of hate and ignorance gnaw at the heart of truth, it's voice can still be heart, strong and defiant