Trevor Brown Interview
Trevor Browns bizarre and slightly disturbing paintings of young asian girls have stirred up controversy amongst the more conservative elements of the art world and the internet. Possibly more darkly humorous than offensive, the paintings are clearly the work of someone with a passion for Eastern eroticism and confounding expectations.
Born and brought up in England, Trevor Brown began producing limited edition photocopied booklets of his ink drawings in the Eighties, with titles like Graphic Autopsy and Necro Porno, influenced by Georges Bataille, De Sade and JG Ballard’s Crash. Increasingly Brown found the UKs attitudes to pornography too repressive and at the first available opportunity decamped to Japan.
Brown was influenced by Japanese culture and dolls and started producing airbrushed paintings describing a world of sinister innocence.
JASON ARBER: What was it about Japan that made you want to move there? Was it a dissatisfaction with England or the strange pull from the east?
TREVOR BROWN: Both. I always had a wide-eyed fascination for Japanese things. I guess it began with Godzilla films. The strange confusing alien world of Japan certainly looked preferable to mundane England. This was the eighties, the Japanese bubble and England recession. A bit before the anime thing took off in the Western world and long before the present tokyo-equals-trendy japanophiliacism. Japan seemed far more remote and inaccessible, therefore provoking my greater curiosity and attraction. I made a few Japanese contacts who introduced me to the secret realm of Suehiro Maruo manga, Jun Togawa records and Japanese bondage videos etc. And that was it, I didn’t want to stay in England any longer.
You have described yourself as “Japanized” and yet you still feel like an outsider. Does that position of not quite being one thing or the other suit you?
It was a Japanese friend who first used that term after I’d been living here several months and started painting dolls and cute stuff, (mostly) turning my back on the S&M and fetish things I had been painting hitherto (things somewhat associated with England). My visual vocabulary changed. Anyway, even though I’ve been here almost ten years now, I’m probably still officially regarded as a tourist and forever demarcated a gaijin (fascistic Japanese term for anyone who isn’t Japanese). It suits me. I like being apart. I thrive on the disorientation and disconnectedness. That sort of remote detachment amidst chaos aids artistic creativity. You can focus on your own (equally crazed?) ideas more easily - you don’t have to worry about them being so ‘crazy’ than if acquiescent to the rational concerns of normal boring life in a normal boring society.
There are very few Western faces in your work: do you find Japanese faces more aesthetic? Or is it, coming from England, the sense of exotic or difference that accentuates the surreal nature of your images?
I never specifically think of the girls and dolls I paint as being Japanese. Or deliberately ‘exotic’. But, of course, it’s true I am attracted to the facial proportions of orientals which do actually tend to fall more in line with universally acknowledged ideals (aesthetic generalisations?) of beauty and cuteness reduced to scientific formula (wide set eyes, pouty lips, small chin etc). Being accustomed to Japanese faces, to me it looks 'normal’. I find it hard to see how others see my work but if it adds to the surreality that’s a happy accident.
Although many find your images shocking, I’m always struck by the black humour in many pieces, which makes me think that on some level, you enjoy playing with people’s sense of morality. Is that a fair comment?
Yes. I get tired of the 'sick shit’ dismissive criticisms (in fact such comments are usually forwarded to commend rather than condemn but I personally don’t really find them complimentary). It is just a superficial reading of my work. I have no grand aim with my art but much of it does revolve around playing with people’s perceptions and values - trying to screw up their indoctrinated sense of morality. I’m interested in questioning and neutralising taboos, the existence of which I tend to view as curious human/societal imperfections. Besides presenting taboo themes in an aesthetically alluring way, humour is a very good tool for disarming them.
Have you ever deliberately created a piece with the aim of shocking, or are you surprised by people’s reactions to your work?
Very rarely do I ever paint something with a designed intent to offend. Possibly only once with the disembowelled jesus painting produced for a Deicide cd cover (commissioned but then, of course, deemed too offensive and hidden inside). I’m really not into the whole juvenile rape and gore preoccupations. Thankfully most of the reactions to my work are not so facile.
How do you deflect the criticism that your art is in some way paedophilic, or might appeal to paedophilics?
I think not even worth trying nowadays. People are going to think what they want no matter what attempted validations i give. More than death, it’s become the ultimate taboo. It’s no longer possible to have a reasonable intelligent discussion re the topic. Whoever’s shouting loudest and most hysterically wins. These self-appointed activists are often more obnoxious than what they are fighting against, if they even know what they are actually fighting against in their blanket judgement of unacceptability. I don’t care! I’m going to paint alluring lolitas if I want to. Hate me.
What do you think about the recent trend of paedophilia-paranoia in the UK press and how it reflects on your work. Would you, for instance, feel safe putting on a gallery show in the UK and how will it effect your paintings in the future, if at all?
I try not to let it bother me but, of course, it does. Especially as it has already crossed the border of thought crime. Art has been targeted less successfully though. I don’t know how much flak i’d get from having an exhibition in England. As just mentioned, it’s usually individual 'trouble-makers’ who stir things up. Safety cannot be calculated in regard to chance events. UK galleries and such evidently view me as a risk so the dilemma never arises anyway. Japan, often cited as the centre of paedo-porn production, is perhaps no less of a risk nowadays. When I came here there were legally available commercial softcore magazines and videos featuring underage girls - which maybe shaped my art to some extent (I was regularly commissioned by one such magazine for paintings). But such material disappeared completely overnight when, under Western pressure, new laws were introduced a few years back. I’m not a confrontational artist and do abide by the rules. So, just as psuedo-peado-porn now appears in adult shops here, I shift focus and find my own way of presenting similar ideas in a legally abiding (and possibly even more potent) manner.
Do you feel that fall into a Western tradition of Art, such as Hans Bellmer, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Morton Bartlett and Henry Darger; or a more Japanese tradition, such as Suehiro Maruo and Keiti Ota? Are such cultural and geographic boundries valid?
I do feel more akin to the like of Suehiro Maruo and Keiti Ota though my art probably doesn’t comfortably fit into either the Japanese or Western tradition. A cross-cultural tradition perhaps (alongside Takashi Murakami and Makoto Aida)? I don’t think it matters, my own ideas are mostly universally (mis)understood.
How much support do you get for your art from your wife? Are the rest of your family happy about your choice of career?
Konomi, my wife, has an unhealthy degree of influence, or should I say interference, on what I do. I feel unhappy if i’m painting something which I know she doesn’t like. Mostly this works very well though - she’ll dissuade me from doing anything too dumb from a Japanese viewpoint (which gaijin, if left to their own want-to-be-accepted-by-Japanese devices, are prone to do embarrassingly). Also, when my own inspiration is running dry, we can sometimes brainstorm fresh ideas together. Besides my sister, the rest of my family don’t really follow what I do. My parents are happy if I’m making money and having exhibitions etc.
What kind of release do you get from your images and paintings? Are they in some way cathartic?
It’s funny how this question keeps cropping up in recent interviewers. I wonder what the interviewer is really asking? Is it like: do i jerk off to my own paintings? (Answer: no). Or why am I doing it? The answer to that I can’t be so positive about. It is sort of inconsistent compulsive behaviour for someone who usually likes to follow path of least resistance (especially in regard to the [supposedly] uncommercial contentious work I create). I guess I am unconsciously hoping to find personal satisfaction (by ridding myself of something) but usually it all feels like a struggle to some elusive end.
Do you have a different approach to paintings, line drawings and screen-printing. Do the different forms suggest different subjects? (There seem to be more adults inhabiting your line art than your paintings, for example)
Yes the line drawings tend to be more pornographic and lazy - just tracing photos - although still seem to require an equal amount of artistic input (aesthetic decisions etc). And the colour pencil drawings more sensitive. The form does suggest the approach. I like trying different things.
How has the internet and your website helped you spread your artwork to a wider audience?
How did you discover my work? I suspect you didn’t chance upon my book in WHSmith! The Baby Art web site helps me inestimably. I live on the other side of the world, I don’t have an agent and don’t promote myself in any other way.
What are the assumptions people have of you, and are any of them justified?
Assumptions of me personally? I don’t really hear any to be honest. I’d hate to imagine what assumptions people do make about me. They are sure to be invalid anyway! How can anyone know the real me? I don’t even permit photographs of myself. To offset any wildly erroneous ideas forming I do strive to be as accessible and open as possible. I answer my mail (sometimes) and do more than my share of interviews like this.
Do you enjoy the status of “cult” artist? Do you strive to be accepted by a wider audience?
It’s good and bad. You can’t shake it off. Suehiro Maruo has been doing almost purely straight commercial work for over a decade now and he’s still considered an underground cult artist. It’s nice to be considered an elite cool artist to like but in my case it does appear to come at the expense of gaining wider recognition and success. Generally I cannot complain I suppose: my works sells to a small circle of avid collectors and I have an ever-increasing number of kids requesting cd covers (albeit not expecting to have to pay me anything, sigh). But i would like to move on from that independent clique and my aims have always been set higher. Personally I don’t think my work is that uncompromising and commercially nonviable. Unfortunately I continue to be studiously ignored by the mainstream (so it seems). Whenever I do actually get approached by bigger magazines or companies (ie. usually enthusiastic employees) there’s always someone in 'the business department’ to ultimately reject me (an invisible, possibly non-existent, entity whose whole raison d'etre is to uphold conservatism and reject the like of me?). I’ve come to an impasse - there’s no further for Trevor Brown to go?
Interview from 2002 by: Jason Arber
This interview is used with kind permission from © Pixelsurgeon.