Darren Sylvester
Starting with short stories, acclaimed photographer Darren Sylvester creates complex emotional scenarios in hyperreal images
By Richard Cooke
Sylvester's taste for pop music and cinematic production values create images that pulse with life
Your new show has wooden sculpture, which is a departure. They’re wood-carved sculptures based on cosmetic company face masks. These masks are quite Transformer-like in the way they’re designed: each company wants to put a lot of angles or cuts on them, which makes them look quite strange. So as a result, when you carve out of wood, they look like voodoo masks or tiki masks. The idea is that because they have this witch-doctor element to them, they can slow time. They also look like death masks to a degree.
How do you think they relate to the rest of your practice? Part of that is to do something different. But they also have links to the other works in that I’m very particular about the surface quality of the photographs, their sharpness and the way they’re lit. I want a high production value, a cinema style to create the mood. The mask is very much about one’s outer appearance, the surface of the skin. The photographs rely on those high-end production values.
The production values and the brand names you use sometimes recall ads. You have less hostility to advertising than some artists. I don’t find it a problem whatsoever, because I think it’s a denial of anybody, particularly of artists, if they want to speak against it, or if they seem anti-globalisation or something like that. The fact is that these are the elements that surround us every day, and they are the objects that we use every day, whether we like it or not. As someone said they’re like little fishbowl dramas, little soap operas in each photo. Whether it’s breaking up or meeting somebody, there’s often a Subway or KFC when it occurs. You’re not in a sterilised environment.
Is it fair to say you’re not afraid of being sentimental? That sentimentality comes from pop music. I’ve often said that the photographs are me trying to be The Carpenters. A popular love song from the Carpenters is universal, and I want the photos to be universal as well. I want the emotional depth that Karen brought to it, but I also want the gloss that Richard brought. Each photo is like a pop song, and the title is like the trigger or the chorus to the song. I think Andy Warhol said: “The best artworks tell you what you already know”.
Some people seem to get the wrong idea that your work is ironic. People sometimes see them as ironic, but there’s definitely no irony whatsoever from my point of view. They’re completely heartfelt and exacting, I think. Sometimes there’s humour in there. Without humour, it’s like producing an album where every song is depressing. Sometimes its good to have a sad lyric on it in a major key or something like that, and I kind of want to do the same. There’s no irony, it’s heartfelt but without making it too schmaltzy. I try and add a few humorous moments. The painting in this show isn’t meant to be ironic, but people could see it as being funny, because I call it I Care For You and it’s a perfect “date picture”.
It’s good natured melancholy, otherwise it might get a bit oppressive. Absolutely, and I’m conscious of that so that why there has to be a bit of humour in there otherwise it becomes really bleak or it verges on emo and you become stereotyped like Robert Smith.
There’s also that element of reserve that prevents it from being adolescent. It’s more reflective, almost like memories of events. There’s a sense of nostalgia, and that’s probably because I’m growing old. There’s a photograph in the show of two people in a photo booth, recording this moment. But they’re teenagers, their relationship is not going to last, and time will create the meaning for them. They’ll have the physical object of the photograph to remind them of the memory. And in much the same way the paintings are there to slow down time, and the masks are there to slow down time as much as possible. The ravaging winds of time will take over us all eventually.
Darren Sylvester shows at Sullivan + Strumpf Fine Art until March 9.
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