“Portraiture and disorder”
Nick Cave on a series of paintings inspired by The Bad Seeds
“Stefanos managed to get at the very heart of No More Shall We Part”
NICK CAVE
WHEN Nick Cave heard that Greek artist Stefanos Rokos wanted to make a series of paintings inspired by every song on the 2001 Bad Seeds album No More Shall We Part, he was, to say the least, sceptical. Fourteen paintings, two exhibitions and one book later, Cave is a confirmed fan.
“Stefanos was one of those peripheral noisemakers that become the bane of us songwriters, who always want to do something with our work,” says Cave. “However, over the years, and many plates of octopus later, I watched him develop a series of paintings that I find to be truly extraordinary and quite unforgettable. He is a wonderful artist and has become a dear friend.”
The 14 richly detailed paintings, made from watercolour, acrylic and pencils on cotton paper, can be seen in Antwerp this September and are also published in book form with forewords from Cave and Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos. The paintings are not literal translations of the songs, but instead try to capture something of their essence. “I am instinctively inspired by melodies, noises and lyrics, and I visualise in my own way what I hear and what I feel,” explains Rokos.
Sclavunos met Rokos in the 1990s, when the young artist demonstrated a talent for finding his way backstage at Nick Cave shows. As Rokos developed as an artist, Sclavunos discovered he often used music to inspire his art. “He’s done a lot of unique collaborations and No More Shall We Part is only the most recent,” he says. “Hybrid art forms, experimentation, boundary breaking and collaboration is always interesting. I saw this work in progress and discussed ideas – I was a sort of an ongoing sounding board. These paintings are extremely subjective and sometimes you are left scratching your head at what the fuck it has to do with the song, but it’s all subtly coded and there are clues to the content of the song, but not explicitly portrayed.”
Rokos discovered Cave’s music at 14 and was particularly inspired by No More Shall We Part. “I was looking for satisfactory answers to various existential questions, and I felt I identified with the basic concepts that this album is about: God and love,” he says. “I envisioned a painting for each song. Many years later, the images still followed me. It could be that the way it expresses concern about certain existential issues and the fine balance that it strikes between deep spirituality and human weaknesses is what I’m looking for in my art.”
Cave gave the project his blessing – “like the Godfather” jokes Sclavunos – but otherwise left Rokos to pursue his own idiosyncratic visions. Sclavunos says, “I can’t think of another album that has inspired a series of paintings where each one latches on to a single song and gives it another form of expression. It’s not illustrative, it’s much more oblique. They aren’t really interpretations, they are transformative manifestations of the songs.”
Or as Cave puts it: “Through his own peculiar and fiercely original vision, Stefanos managed to get at the very heart of No More Shall We Part – an acutely intimate mixture of portraiture and disorder.”