MEET THE ARTIST....

....SCHOONY

 

 

 

 

Friday night me and Mr attended the preview art show of our old colleague and friend Schoony at the Ivy, London...

 We have known Tristen "Schoony" Schoonerad for years from working with him in the British film industry, and it was a privilege to be there to support him at the opening of his first solo show, IF I STAND ON MY TOES, I CAN TOUCH THE CEILING, as an artist...

 

 

 

His background is deeply rooted in the film industry, and he and his brother, Robin, grew up on film sets, where their father John (a legend in the British film industry) worked on films, such as "Raiders of the Lost ark" and "Return of the Jedi"...

Both Robin and Tristen have followed in their fathers footsteps, and have worked for more than 20 years making special effects and prosthetics in movies all over the world...and they are both part of their fathers lifecasting business in Elstree Studios, UK...a proper family business.

But for Tristen, making film effects was just a means to an end...

in his own words, he always knew he wanted to do something more extraordinary...

he wanted to use the skills 2 decades of working on films had taught him to make what HE wanted to make, how HE wanted to make it....not just be an artisan for designers on big Hollywood productions...making "silly monsters" and dead bodies....

(no offence papa Schoony...)

 

Schoony took his first tentative steps into the art world in 1998, when he on short notice created "rope trick" for an underground exhibition of work by people in the British film industry...it was a piece he had imagined for a long time, inspired by the Indian fables of a boy climbing a magical rope 

He took a lifecast of his nephew Kai (Robin's son) climbing a rope and put together his very first art piece...

Kai has since been his model of choice for a lot of his pieces, including the iconic "Boy Soldiers" with which Schoony took the London Art scene by storm in 2008 at mutate Britain's one foot in the grove exhibition on Portobello Road..

 

As opposed to "rope trick" that symbolises "weightlessness", where Kai is looking down on the public, the pose of "boy soldiers" is facing up...."looking up at us with a look of what he may become" It is a statement of a persons potential...Kai's haunting expression put together with the grenade clutched in his little hand is part of what makes these pieces so relevant today...

... and in fact Schoony caught the British medias attention with this piece when he had a 3D installation displayed on the peace plinth outside the houses of Parliament in protest to the UK's involvement in the war in Afghanistan in 2011.

Kai was 7 years old when his lifecast was taken for "boy soldiers" - the same age of some of our soldiers serving in Afghanistan as they would have been less than 10 years ago...

"I don't want this future for my nephew"...

 

 

Schoony is one of a few artists to use lifecasting as part of his creative process...usually used in the film industry to produce incredibly lifelike dummies and effects, it involves taking a negative cast of the actual person, that then will be cast out as a positive in a sculptable material, such as plastecine, so that the figure or features then can be altered as needed...but Schoony revealed at his show, that the future now lays in 3D scanning...so times are changing, also for the family's lifecasting business...

 

Schoony now joins an impressive list of top artists whose work is also featured throughout the swanky Ivy club, including Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn and Matt Collishaw, and his artistic career is set to continue going from strength to strength. But it hasn't just been plain sailing: It has taken a lot of hard work and commitment to break into the UK art scene, and although he has made few good friends along the way, that has been very supportive and given him some great advice, Schoony's transition from film industry artisan to fine artist has been met with a few "who do you think you are..." attitudes, both from his old colleagues in the movies and from the art world...

 

 "it is very difficult getting your name recognized at first in the art scene, and I am met with a lot of prejudices all the time"

 

 But his father John has always been supportive, and with his and an artist, family friend, Nick Reynolds' help Schoony looks to have finally broken into the UK art scene..

 

 

 

Schoony is giving a direct nod to his background in the film industry with his latest figure " Master Warhol" where another lifecast of his nephew Kai shows a young boy looking up through a handheld cine-camera...perhaps a retro perspective nod to his own childhood...  No doubt inspired by the iconic Warhol prints this figure is repeated throughout the exhibition in various bright colour combinations..

 

 

And with his current work " scullduggery", set to be featured in the next "Kick ass 2" film premiering a stone throw away from the his exhibition at the Ivy, in Leicester square next week, he is again blurring the lines between film and art....

 

  

 From top left: Me with papa Schoonerad, me and Mr., Me and Schoony, the brothers Schoonerad, Tristan and Robin,  Robin and Sally Schoonerad ( the proud parents of model and muse Kai).

  

 It is not just young Kai that has been immortalised for Shoony's latest body of work ....

 

 

 

The figure "comeuppance" is a mixed lifecast of actor Nick Moran, of "Lock stock and two smoking barrel" fame.. and his brother Robyn.....the pose is very theatrical and almost cinematic, as if yet again hinting to Schoony's past in the filmindustry .

In the picture above Mr Moran is explaining to me how he has lent his wristwatch to the figure for the evening, because he didn't like to see "his own hands" without it...

 

 

 The ethereal title piece "If I stand on my toes, I can touch the ceiling", where a young woman is levitating towards the ceiling,  perfectly sums up the title of the exhibition, and the message conveyed that If you strive to achieve , you can, like Schoony himself has proved, make something extraordinary out of your life....

 

IF I STAND ON MY TOES ,I CAN REACH THE CEILING  will be showing at the Ivy club until the 17th of August .

Supported by Art Below, Schoony's work will also be publicly showcased on a billboard space at Piccadilly tube station until the 26th August.

 

If you are in London, make sure you check it out, and if you are not, watch out for his artworks feature role in the anticipated "kick ass 2"...

 

xxx

June