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 ‘THE ECHOES OF DISOBEDIENCE’
Today London tomorrow Los Angeles...or to be more precise, London this month and LA in June.
I am talking about south Londoner Lee Mangan’s art exhibition and live music.
Lee is better known as rock/ punk outfit Steranko’s lead singer and has been noted for his unpredictable, wild performances.
However and luckily for us, as far as he is concerned there is much more to life than climbing walls and rolling on the floor to loud music, however good it is.
Right now at The Novas Contemporary Urban Centre [South east London] you have the opportunity to check out for yourself Mr Mangan’s acclaimed talent in the form of oil paintings, comic strip art and videos. To a Steranko soundtrack obviously!
There is also a live acoustic set planned for June 2nd that’s not to be missed.
Interestingly Lee’s career as a visual artist is intrinsically linked to Steranko’s offerings and the guys, [that’s also Lee Elvey, Dave Hill and Chris Cole] will be touring the West coast of America in June rocking to the tunes of their forthcoming second album ‘Keepers Of The Fallo’
Wanting to discover more about the man behind the music and paintings, I visit the ‘charismatic, genial, exciting star on the rise ‘ as Vogue would say, in his working environment to discuss more personal matters, such as part of his childhood, his starting painting, his beloved band and much more.....
 Florence: There is this myth/ joke surrounding your visual art stating that you started painting as a result of having lost your TV remote control and being too lazy to get up and manually change the channels!
Can you deny or confirm that?
Lee: It all started during the making of Steranko’s first album, ‘Culturephrenia’ in 2003.
It took over a year of studio time to record that album and unfortunately I wasn’t needed to put my vocals down until the last few days.
I was getting incredibly frustrated with the whole thing and as a result spent a lot of time watching television.
Anyway one day I couldn’t find my remote control anymore and I was so wound up with getting up and turning the fucking telly over that I gave up and started painting instead!
I guess that really I started painting because I had a year to wait to do my vocals.
Florence: I am sure that there is a lot more to it than that!
So you don’t actually have any formal training on the subject?
Lee: No! At first I even used water-colours on canvas thinking that it would stay but it didn’t, it just felt right off!
Florence: But obviously you did get it right eventually...
Lee: With every painting I got better and better because I realised that there was a bit of technique to it...
All the paintings I did were inspired by the songs on the album.
I did a series called ‘Culturephrenia’ which was those songs, bearing the same titles and eventually I did an exhibition in Brighton.
Florence: As your music was temporarily put on hold with your band mates in the studio while you weren’t required yet, did painting become a way for you to express yourself?
Instead of or parallel to music writing?
 Lee: None of that!
I felt that everyone around me was trying to ask for explanations about why I was doing the things I was doing and human beings take a lot of convincing, there is to be a reason behind everything.
I was doing this album and there were so many people working on it, arguing about whether this is right, that is right...I had to prove to them that I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
I think that a lot of the time you have to prove that you are artistic.
Art is a lot about proving yourself or at least it was at that time for me.
It’s all right to talk about art, to talk about painting something but to actually do it and make it look realistic or impactive, and not just make it so you can say you’ve done it because it’s inside you...
To do something that people will look at and see weight in it is fucking hard because it’s maybe easier to paint something that doesn’t look like anything.
I could always draw comics and people would say that I was arty.
As you get older and your life starts taking masses of failures you realise that the person you were like at school was respected because of it and the only forgiveness you got of people was because you were a bit artistic, so I thought that I would try to rekindle who I once was at school and go back to that kind of stature where I could be left alone if I asked to. It had some weight because I was an artist rather than turning into an argument.
When you’re in a band you just know when things are right but being comedic, funny and having a laugh, people, even to this day, never took me seriously. So I thought that I could do this and that and I am not just all talk because that is the trouble with a lot of people...they are.
You see them and you think that about them and you worry that people are gonna think the same about you. That’s how the paintings came about.
Florence: Your first album came out in 2005, you became extremely busy again but you carried on painting.
Was it out of a certain need or was it addictive?
Lee: I carried on because, to be honest, I’m not really much good at anything but I realised that I’m all right at painting. I’m not brilliant.
I don’t paint in a conventional way, I paint downwards with the canvas flat which makes it hard. I hover my paint brush above the canvas which means that I need to hold my hand steady. Maybe if I changed my technique I would get a lot better or maybe I’d get worst, I don’t know!
Florence: How should people interpret your paintings?
Lee: The trouble with it all is that you are continuously second guessing what people are gonna think of everything you do and including yourself.
So often you do something then look at it and think: “ maybe it’s fucking shit ! “, it doesn’t matter whose name is beside something, it doesn’t matter who you know, where you exhibit...I ain’t God, I ain’t gonna change the world, I haven’t got any answers for anyone, I haven’t got anything. All I’ve got is a couple of lines on a bit of canvas, that’s it.
People might want for something to be there and I wish there was but there isn’t!
I am not being doom and gloom but the one thing that is there is that I enjoy doing it and when I finish the pieces sometimes I look at them and I do see something in them that I didn’t see when I was working on them.
Therefore there is maybe a slight kind of spirituality and energy around my paintings. Sometimes I want to get off the board and sit down so I rush the painting and that creates a slight effect on them.
All in all it doesn’t really matter what happens to any of my work or what people think of it because it’s not that important in the scheme of things.
It’s just some nice pictures.
Florence: There is a dark theme going on and you said something very interesting about that the first time I asked you about it.
I thing that I was worried about your state of mind and wondered if that was the way you see people around you but you replied: “ This is the way I see people’s souls. People are beautiful on the outside but they are ugly inside. “
Is this statement still valid?
Lee: Yes some pictures are really dark but the world is a dark place.
Beauty is a kind of commodity that will get you a certain amount of things but beauty is only temporary and it is in the eye of the beholder.
To me the beauty of a human being is being human!
If you look at a magazine, the pictures are often touched up and glossy to make the eye attracted to them, just like a magpie attracted to silver.
The trouble with that is that there is none of you in that picture.
If you’re attracted to glossy, fake people maybe it means that you’re not even attracted to yourself. You want something that is better than you, you want something to look up to, something pristine but really whoever you are, you’re all right. There is so much beauty in getting old.
Florence: What do these people on canvas say to you?
Lee: I don’t think that these people are ugly, they actually look quite free to me and yes their bodies are quite distorted!
Florence: Isn’t this somewhat relevant to parts of your childhood?
Lee: Yes, when I was a kid and for a while I had to have a colostomy bag and I used to spend hours and hours looking at food coming out, looking at my stomach spitting out food in a bizarre way and it was Wow!, “ this is me, this is what goes on inside me. “ and I became fascinated by the human body.
If you look at war movies there are always loads of chopped up bodies everywhere and it’s like going to the butcher’s or looking at pornography. The human body is a beautiful thing but the image of it has been corrupted. At the end of the day people can’t cheat death and we can’t stop our bodies from breaking down and decaying and it’s looked upon as being ugly. Ok it’s not always a beautiful thing but it actually means that we’re alive. Someone sick or older who isn’t well is probably more aware of being alive than someone who is young and healthy.
Florence: Apart from oil on canvas, you are also showing some of your comic art, which is a totally different way of working.
Tell me more about that.
Lee: The whole of my life has been about drawing a comic strip. That’s been my major goal and it’s the hardest thing I have ever done.
It totally exhausted me!
The one being exhibited at The Novas gallery is not my favourite one, but it’s a good start and my god it was hard work!
It took me hours upon hours.
Florence: Going back to your band, just like with the first Steranko album you are responsible for the forthcoming Lp’s [‘Keepers Of The Fallo’] artwork.
It’s the picture of the sculpture of a ‘penis/ stiletto’!
Would you care to enlighten me on that one?
Lee: One day when I was a little boy I walked into the toilets at school, [in New Malden, South London], and I saw this drawing of a penis on the wall and it was so big and had all this hair everywhere and looking like it was wearing a german helmet and I thought: “ what the fuck...”, my penis didn’t look anything like that and obviously it wasn’t that big either so I walked out the toilet completely and utterly emotionally scarred....for years about this thing. I realised that this image was so powerful, that the image of a penis is probably the most powerful image ever!
‘Keepers Of The Fallo’ could mean different things!
Fallo also means failure. Failure to us is ‘Culturephrenia’ which didn’t sell as much as it should have despite the rave reviews and even being called a masterpiece!
And somehow we expect to do that again this time, keeping up the same statistics. You go out into the world and it spits you back out and you want to go and hide under your mum’s bosom but instead you have to face the music. When you do a second album, to call it a failure even before it’s out is a beautiful ‘fuck you!’ if it’s a success and if it’s a failure you can say “ well I told you so ! “. You can’t lose!
So anyway I did this sculpture of a penis with a stiletto heel.
A stiletto is also a knife...
I heard that pornography stays in your mind longer than any other imagery and that’s a good bit of information to have if you’re a painter/ visual artist.
Florence: Would that explain why you always depict your characters naked?
Lee: I find nudity quite fascinating because I am still uncomfortable with it so that’s probably why I paint nudes and quite graphic ones as well.
But when I do them they don’t seem naked to me, they seem like people and then when I pull back I think: “ but they’re naked! “, it’s really quite bizarre.
Florence: The exhibition is called “Echoes Of Disobedience” .
Are you being disobedient?
Lee: I think that being in a band is being disobedient.
Disobedience is not reaching the kind of criteria that’s expected of you!
The reason I paint or play in a rock band is because that’s quite basic.
I know that there are different forms of art but painting is very quick, whatever you put down on the canvas is down and being in a band is very primal, it’s all about hitting things, hitting the drums, hitting the guitar strings and my singing is very close to shouting.
Very primal indeed.
Florence: These are two different outlets, which one comes more naturally to you?
Or are you expressing two different sides of your personality?
Lee: It’s an honour to paint and it’s an honour to be in a band or to even talk about it. It’s an honour that anyone would show any interest
and it’s a privilege that anyone would give you an exhibition.
It’s a privilege to sing over people you look up to just like it’s a privilege that anyone would even listen to our music.
That’s the truth and to look at it any other way is shit.
The way it seems to be is that my band will play and enjoy playing even if no one came to see us but we really hope that when people turn up they really get their money’s worth and have a good night where they don’t give a shit about work for a second.
Just like I hope that people can look at my paintings and get lost in the moment and for a second not worry about the loan they have to pay back that month.
I think that everyone should paint, enjoy it and not care about what anyone else has to say because it’s not only relaxing but very humbling.
Florence: I believe that a lot of people paint as a hobby maybe but not a lot of them get offered an exhibition or get branded a talented genius as you have.
Lee: The thing about being an artist or being in a band is that you have to give up quite a lot, you have to sacrifice quite a lot. It’s really hard and once you choose that life you can’t turn back on it. You’re kind of ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’.
It’s hard because you’ve got to get used to not having any money, get used to being criticised.
Painting is not something I often talk about, it doesn’t make me who I
am, it’s just something that I do and enjoy...however it does have an effect on me, it’s a responsibility. Every time you paint a piece there is the pressure that it’s not as good as the last one you did, the pressure that once you had something and maybe you’ve lost it.
All these massive pressures manifest themselves in the darker part of your soul and maybe it’s the same problem a girl would feel. She was once 18 and then 25 and 50 and she’s changing...you feel that maybe you only have something to say for a short period of time, you might only be liked for a certain period of time, people will turn their back on you and sometimes you feel that no one really cares anyway. You go through hype and lack of hype...
Florence: Your fate is in somebody else’s hands. There comes a point when your own life is out of your control, maybe once you’ve put something out there for other people to dissect.
Lee: It’s exactly that but then again people are great. I’ve had people say really lovely things.
Words & pictures: Florence ACHERY
www.echoes-of-disobedience.com
www.manganart.com
www.myspace.com/sterankomusic |
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