01
Everything After Midnight X Jessica Swift
On Beauty & Home?
Everything After Midnight is a 5-piece band based in York. Harnessing a distinctive sound inspired by the likes of YONAKA, boygenius, The Beths and Wolf Alice, Everything After Midnight are one to watch and a force to be reckoned with. The band have received support from BBC Introducing, especially with their recently released EP ‘Still Sleeping’.
Paired with Everything After Midnight is West Yorkshire artist Jessica Swift, who is a 21 year old Fine Art graduate from Leeds Arts University. She primarily works in large-scale contemporary sculpture, photography and installation.
The artwork being presented with Everything After Midnight’s ‘On Beauty’ is Swift’s series ‘Home?’. Her use of the blanket is, for Swift, representative of a children’s den, and by bringing this outside of a home, she was able to bring the inside, outside.
Through the lens:
Everything After Midnight’s track conveys images of beauty and how it can be manufactured. It has the theme throughout that someone can be sculpted into a ‘beauty queen’ or painted to appear as pretty as a picture. Swift’s performance art was paired as it contrasts with this imagery, with the artist’s clever concealment of the figure. Swift’s childlike play of hiding in plain sight, cleverly makes the viewer notice and wonder about this hidden figure, whose face they have not seen. In one way, the line ‘I’m so sick of pretty’ is visualized in Swift’s image, as someone who does not want their appearance to define them.
02
Pavilion X Naomi Vona
Vivre Sa Vie & Conversations in Riso 001
Emerging from the ever growing Yorkshire music scene, Pavilion began their journey in late 2018 and haven't looked back since. The five piece formed on the back of a love for music and the desire to create a sound unheard in today's current indie scene.
For their featured track ‘Vivre Sa Vie’ the band explain, the lyrics did seem to come from spending too much time around people whose only purpose in life is to make everyone they come across aware of their opinions, no matter how wrong they might be.
Adding visuals to Pavilion’s ‘Vivre Sa Vie’ is London based Italian artist, Naomi Vona. The artist defines herself as an "archival parasite, with no bad intentions". Her research is focused on altering vintage and contemporary found images, creating a new interpretation of the original shots. Every work is composed of three elements: her life background, her inspirations and subconscious, that is also the glue that puts all together.
The piece ‘ Conversations in Riso 001’ is part of a personal art research on self portraits. Although this body of work is a direct tribute to the Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer, it's also a deep creative exploration. This particular work explores my greatest fears and crashes my comfort zone.
Through the lens:
Vivre sa vie, loosely translated to ‘it’s my life and my life to live’, takes its inspiration from the 1962 French film under the same name. Vona’s image seems to depict the conflict of the lyrics ‘I never liked fame’ and ‘fame never liked me’. The two images layered on top of one another uses aspects of the pop art style from the 1960s, referencing the same era as the film Vivre Sa Vie.
03
Bull X Laurel Pettitt
Bedroom Floor & Bodies of Water
The song ‘Bedroom Floor’ is the opening track to their album ‘Discover Effortless Living’. ‘Bedroom Floor’ is described as “a letter to myself”. After feeling frustrated for not being able to enjoy a holiday, the song was written. Despite not liking the song originally, Beer played it to guitarist Dan, who liked the melody and naturally added a classic sounding guitar solo to the track.
Grouped together with ‘Bedroom Floor’ is Norwich image-maker and writer Laurel Pettitt. Pettitt believes art to be an accessible vessel for truth as well as stories, to reflect life. The work is created to connect with others and capture the world and the myriad of feelings and moments within it.
The inspiration behind this image is from Pettitt’s final major project at university that was based around the fantastic landscapes of Iceland. This is the Blue Lagoon, and initially this image was created without much forethought and was a meditative experience in filling in the blue waves around the swimmers. Originally, the piece was titled ‘A Part of Something Bigger’ because it is a cropped version of the full A2 design. It’s a nod to the larger truth that we’re all individuals who are ultimately, equally, part of a bigger picture.
Through the lens:
The chorus of Bedroom Floor, has a light, playful feel, which also comes through in Pettitt’s artwork. ‘Go outside and have some fun’ makes the listener think of this freeing, youthful, chilled out summer’s day, which is perfectly visualized through the subjects in ‘Bodies In Water’. It is a sonically feel good track, with hidden lyrics of frustration. What Pettitt's visually pleasing art highlights in the track, is the essential need to seek out the fun in life even on those down days.
04
Tommyrot. X Children of Wolves
Funky Feeling & You Are Happy
“Weird, wacky, wayward, waggish, witty, wonky, whimsical, wonderfully eclectic, stylistic nut jobs” is how Bill Adamson (With Just A Hint Of Mayhem) describes York band Tommyrot. working their way to being a staple of the York music scene, their self-proclaimed Grunk (Grunge/Funk) sound is going down a treat.
Tommyrot’s track ‘Funky Feeling’ is combined with the artwork by Children of Wolves. Based near York, Children Of Wolves' work creates a nostalgic feel for a world that never existed. A retro-futuristic but colourful dystopia. A "Kawaii Cyberpunk" 1980's of the future, where bright and colourful won over grim and gritty yet an underlying darkness creeps out. Inspired by, Japanese pop-culture, The KLF and Blade Runner, Children of Wolves works mainly with acrylic and spray paint on canvas. His original characters populate a world that is both a critique of capitalism as well as of the art world itself.
Through the lens:
When listening to Tommyrot’s Funky Feeling, it is a completely fun tune that is perfectly supported with ‘You Are Happy’. The large, bold lettering of ‘super happy’ in Children of Wolves’ work, creates the same forced happiness as the lyrics ‘make me feel that funky feeling’. It is the drive to find that place of euphoria and together, they evoke the urge to dance and let loose.
05
Pannik X Hattie Kongauruan
Be With You & Float
Pannik is a York based, solo and session artist. He has been making music since 2019, at the young age of 15 and has since started a vocational course in music and performance at college. He already has a strong musical vocabulary and a matured sound.
Pannik’s growing social media success started with TikTok lives, establishing over 19 thousand followers after a series of online performances. This post-punk show gaze artist is inspired by the infinite effects created by guitar peddles, and his timing is perfect with the increasing new wave of post-punk inspired artists that aim to create new sounds. “Post-punk is the new indie-rock in terms of popularity, there’s a new wave of experimental hard rock coming about”.
Hattie Kongauruan’s practice focuses on exploring the chair's intrinsic relationship between art, function and the human body. Often inspired by natural elements, this project playfully rescues discarded chairs into hybrid uncanny creatures or complex structures. Being mindful of the impact to the environment, Kongauruan’s practice aims to avoid using new materials as much possible. Her works, if not always functional, will often portray various characters and personas reacting to their renewed purpose within an art context, and their salvage from landfill.
Through the lens:
The lyric “I need to find a place where I can live in peace and quiet”, could capture Kongauruan’s image on it’s own. The figure, although positioned unconventionally, seems to be content, comfortability aside.
‘Be With You’ discusses someone who is trying to figure themselves out and how they can become a better person for someone. Have you ever found yourself lying in the most awkward position, thinking about the state of your life? The act of laying in this way in ‘Float’, could be seen to portray the pondering regret and desire for self-improvement that the track explores.
06
Abi Swift X Holly Burton
No More (I don’t want you) & Blushful and Bashful
Abi Swift is a young musician from Bradford. After starting to play music at 6 years old it’s been all Swift has wanted to do ever since. Swift wrote, produced and mixed the song herself with the help of others. The song came about as an experiment, with Swift being completely new to songwriting and production. Gradually, the track turned into something much bigger and more impressive after each week of working on it and learning new things. It taught Swift to be patient with art “it doesn't all come together with the snap of a finger”. It takes time and love to make something you are truly proud of.
Holly Burton is currently in her third year studying for a Photography degree in York. Her primary interests lie in creative portraiture and landscape photography, and this has drawn Burton to focus on portraiture within the landscape. Inspired by visual media, literature, philosophy and folklore; Burton enjoys creating images which convey a message or tell a story. With a background in dance, Burton particularly enjoys using movement while shooting, or creating movement with fabrics. More recently, in light of the pandemic, Burton has begun to experiment with self-portraiture with the aim of using the body as a vessel to explore different ideas as well as using the process of creating as a form of self-care.
This piece was originally inspired by the concept of using fashion as a form of silent conversation, what fashion can tell us about a person and how fashion can be used to communicate a message. Burton really wanted to explore motion blur at the time of creating this image because unlike static, frozen movement, it was not seen commonly in fashion imagery.
Through the lens:
The aesthetic photography of Burton, grants Swift’s music with the imagery it evokes. The song glances at past relationships, with the tenseness of not wanting to let go of one relationship, whilst simultaneously letting go of another. The turning of the back on the viewer, and the tossing of the dress encapsulates the lyric “I’m sorry to say, I don’t want you no more” and the idea of throwing away a relationship with no remorse, in the pursuit of something the heart desires. On the other hand, the swish of fabric could be suggesting that a part of the person is lingering in this past relationship and pondering about this person they were once close to.
07
BrunchBox X Sophie Martin
Sun/Burbank & Flow
BrunchBox is the passion project of three childhood mates from Sheffield. Fans of The Night Café, Hippo Campus and Clairo will be well at home with BrunchBox. With tracks featuring ever important catchy hooks and a clean cut sound, BrunchBox readily employ melodic guitar riffs alongside soothing backing vocals. The whole summer was spent in Guitarist/Vocalist Andrew’s home studio in Sheffield where, instead of worrying about how the songs would be performed live, no idea was left unexplored.
As the title might suggest, ‘Sun/Burbank’ is two songs mashed together. The primary section is a resurrected 2018 BB demo which began life as an indie banger. The section post-beat switch is our first real foray into a hip-hop style beat, with two intertwining auto-tuned vocal lines, both recorded on a whim in one take each. The first half of the song explores someone feeling confusion in a relationship and feeling like they have no power, they tell themselves that next time they won't make the same mistakes. In the second half they come to peace with the fact that 'some things aren't up to us' and that they can't always be in control.
Paired with BrunchBox is York St John University, Fine Art Graduate, Sophie Martin. Martin considers a scope of 2D and 3D approaches to painting through processes of layering and building structures. Her practice explores autobiography, often placing images of the self alongside reflections on the traits of introversion and introspection. In a merging of painting with photography through double exposures, Martin identifies contradictions between the physical and the cognitive, presence and absence. Her paintings are defined by an overloading of imagery and a muted colour palette which seem to wash away the figure. The resulting images are worked into with foils or other delicate and easily manipulated materials. These offer a vulnerability and a sense of humanness in their fragile or skin-like qualities.
Through the lens:
Both of these creative works explore ideas of control and self-reflection. Through looking deeply at oneself, it allows us to question our relationships with others, but also with ourselves.
The repeated line “some things aren’t up to us”, as BrunchBox mentioned, could be viewed as a retrospective of accepting the fate of a relationship. Within the context of Martin’s artwork however, this lyric could portray how we come to accept ourselves. These aspects make us who we are and it may be that exploring them as Martin does through her art, is better than hiding from them.
08
Rory Mclean X Eloise Morgan
The Fire & Illustrating the Mind
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Rory McLean’s lil’ rock n roll number ‘The Fire’ is written about addiction in McLean’s family and own life, whether it’s substances, ambition, work or anything else. It also stems from the desire to be something or someone and how this notion begins as a young person and can grow if you feed it, sometimes leading to suffering if pushed too far. The voice at the start of the song is McLean’s Grandad who learnt how to use the voice memos on his iPhone in the process.
Joining ‘The Fire’ is Eloise Morgan, a 22 year old Artist and Illustrator. Having recently graduated from Norwich University of the Arts studying Illustration, Morgan’s goal is to visually express the mind through mixed media and painting. Taking inspiration from personal experiences with mental wellbeing, Morgan uses art in therapeutic styles of healing inner conflicts.
Through practice and study Morgan found her work naturally flowed towards abstract styles, initially influenced by the surrealism movement in the early 1900s. Further research into psychology, automatic drawing and lyrical abstractions; lead Morgan to use art as a personal outlet to overcome personal neurological issues that could communicate with an audience who also suffer with mental or physical health. Morgan hopes to expand the narrative for artwork. This has also led to further interest within art history, looking at conservation and restoration projects, using traditional media and skills.
Through the lens:
The dramatic images of Morgan’s work compliment The Fire as the skies engulfing the trees create the overwhelming sense that comes with being taken over by a feeling. The lyrics, ‘out of control’ could be thought to put into words, the dark, clouded skies we see in Morgan’s work. The light that comes shining through representing the bright, burning, intenseness of fire.