Rhys Coren, @rhyscoren, was born in Plymouth, UK, in 1983. Coren works across animation, writing, performance and painted marquetry. He explores rhythm, colour and texture in work that is characterised by cartoon-like clouds, grids of colour, shadows and the interplay of lines. Inspired by music, Coren credits the structures found in electronic dance music, jazz and disco as central to his work.
Coren was recently commissioned to create a nine metre long public artwork made from bespoke terrazzo, ‘Everyone I’ve Ever Known’, displayed behind Bond Street Crossrail station in London. In 2018, he was commissioned to create an animation as part of the Lumiere Festival, London. Entitled Love Motion, the animation was projected across the Royal Academy of Arts building and was accompanied by a bespoke soundtrack.
We spoke to Rhys about the power of ‘cross-learning’, the necessary evil of social media for artists, his takeaways from his time at The Royal Academy and more...
Can you tell us about the process of completing ‘Everyone I’ve Ever Known’?
In many ways the process was very simple. Everyone I’ve Ever Known came out looking just how I’d imagined it would… in my head - which is a paradoxical experience I often have after finishing a new work. It’s brand new and a surprise, but familiar like it was always meant to be. The reality, though, is it took 5 long, hard years from inception to installation. It’s a 9 metre (30 feet) long, 4 tonne collage of terrazzo marble hanging in central London against a tube station. There were curators, developers, contractors, sub-contractors, accountants, project managers, metal workers, engineers, marble makers, marble cutters, framers, Transport for London executives, London borough council officials, health and safety people, lighting experts, abseilers, multiple crane drivers, road closures and, to top it all off, Covid. It’s a very unfair that it’s only me who gets to have their name on it.
What role does music play in your work?
I’ve described it in the past as both fuel and content. I love how, when you hear a certain song, or even a certain combination of notes or beats, it can evoke an intense, involuntary reaction in your body in a way that’s consistently far less subtle than in visual art. I’m starting to see a third role for music in my practice - as a proxy; a moment for cross-learning. I’ve been playing various instruments along to musical greats and (badly) mimicking their timing and touch as a way to better understand colour and its emotional values, thinking of chord progressions as colours combinations. I get an immediate response from my body. This is something I tend to do a lot, this cross-learning thing. I’ve used poetry to understand economy and potency in my work in the past, stand-up comedy as a way to better understand timing and delivery, and I’ve used endurance sport as a way to understand that what you get out is what you put in - the responsibility is on you. You get better from consistency and pushing yourself.
What’s been inspiring you most in recent times?
Working with local children in South London. Drawing Room gallery in Bermondsey (South London) has a community outreach programme with a new, purpose built art studio for local children, and I’ve been running animation workshops since last September. Children are natural artists, and along the way, they develop inhibitors to that creativity. Then, as young adults, anyone who wants to pursue art education, has to undergo a process of unlearning and breaking down those inhibitors to unleash that inner artist again.
Also, the children Drawing Room work with are specifically from less privileged backgrounds, and in order to be able to help develop their skills for communicating in a way that in less literal and verbal has been incredible. One of the highlights was seeing the faces of a room full of 9 and 10 year olds as they watched a Normal McLaren animation (from the 50s) for the first time.
What made you want to compile a collection of over 800 songs with the word 'love' in the title?
Embracing the soppy sentimentality of my musical taste. The overt cheesiness of disco, dance and 80s pop. At first it was a sort of apophenia, seeing patterns in album and song titles of the music I listen to most. As I striped some of the language away, I was always left with the word ‘love’. It’s a way of throwing a blanket over lots of different musical genres that seem to have shared characteristics - all of which do that involuntary bodily reaction thing. I like setting up a simple rule and then just following wherever it may take me. There’s some order in that chaos.
I read your 2012 interview with DAZED Magazine, where you’re asked about your relationship to the online world as an artist. Now, 12 years on, how has that relationship changed with the landslide in popularity of social media?
Social media now is a necessary evil. In a recent interview with the amazing Barbara Gladstone before her death, she said (about the version of the art world she came up in): “You had to actually see the art to see the art.” Now, yes, you have this immediate access to a constantly refreshing stream of global art unconstrained by a system of gatekeepers, but the flip-side is nothing seems potent or precious and detail and nuance is lost. The internet I talked about in 2012 was a sub-culture. I initiated and co-ran an online gallery from 2011 - 2013, and was part of a group of artists and writers from across the world sharing work - creating digital and moving images, but we also helped each other understand the processes and mechanisms for creating digital work. We shared programmes and taught each other how to use them, then shared what we made and even wrote about it.
What was your biggest takeaway from your time at The Royal Academy?
It was the catalyst for so much of what I’ve been able to achieve. I got my 10,000 hours in the 10 years before I went (I was 30 when I started there), but I got another 10,000 hours in the 3 years I was there. It was intense. The sense of honour, history and prestige you feel walking into a 250 year old museum everyday to make art is unparalleled. I loved it. The thing that really drew me to it, and I applied several times over the years before finally getting in, is The Royal Academy is artist-led, and the 3 year, full-time course is free as a result of that. That means fewer barriers to entry, and artists from outside of London’s upper-middle classes get to go. So, my biggest takeaway was… I COULD be an artist, even as someone from a working class background and a provincial coastal town.
What are you most looking forward to in the coming months?
A lot of longer term projects will be coming to fruition over the coming months. I’ve been working with Pete Kosowicz on a new set of woodblock prints for Cristea Roberts gallery, a book I’ve been working on for 10 years is currently with the designer, I’ve organised a group exhibition at GaleriePCP in Paris for October, I’ve been making stone furniture in collaboration with marble expert Peter Noyce - who I met through producing Everyone I’ve Ever Known, I have a solo show in New York at Foreign & Domestic and, the biggest thing, production for a major new public work in central London begins after a year and half of ‘designing’. For that, we’re making a granite floor.
If you had to pick an album to play on repeat in your studio, which would it be?
The Substance compilation by New Order.
If you enjoyed this conversation with Rhys, make sure to check out our other Artist Spotlight interviews over on https://www.brushwrk.co.uk/blog and whilst you’re there, why not have a look through all of the fantastic art we have for sale from emerging artists? Pop into the website to see what catches your eye...
Comments