Monster Chetwynd, if spirits and demons become reality

By Elda Oreto

Rite of passage, liberation, space of rupture, limits, chaos, law, life, order, death, identity, masks, high culture and popular culture, ancient and modern, serious and humorous are all elements the British artist, Monster Chetwynd, mixes in her artistic research that swings between the magical ritual and the social experiment, creating an atmosphere that feels as if we are between a village festival and the Ancient Greek Theater.

The basic idea is that in our highly codified and programmed society it is necessary and somehow inevitable to build a place of liberation in which morality is weakened to allow for a time when the rules are reversed, and normality is subverted.
In this space, which becomes the space of Chetwynd’s performances, the absurd element prevails and allows a process of renewal in which, dressing up, masks collapse, the serious mixes with humor, the body prevails over the spirit, new rules and balances are redefined.
The starting point of this transformation process for Monster Chetwynd is her own identity and role as an artist in the society. Monster Chetwynd is in fact almost a mythological character. Indeed it is the result of the combination of social, cultural, economic and political elements that make up an individual, but also of the limits that distinguish her from the context that surrounds her: she is one and many at the same time, “Monster” but also all the masks and characters she must wear in a society entangled in an infinite number of roles.

Monster Chetwynd has adopted a number of artistic names; from 2006 to September 2013 she worked under the name of Spartacus Chetwynd, followed by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd from September 2013 to April 2018, before choosing the name Monster Chetwynd in April 2018.
Attracted by shamanistic practices, the idea of transformation, the boundary and the aesthetic and behavioral proximity between humans and animals, such as bats and crocodiles, the artist, nominated for the Turner Prize in 2012, creates a poetic concept that involves the desire to become Other. A bit like in magical realism where the raw and brutal reality is interrupted by some purely fantastic elements and incredible events.
The starting point of her research comes from her academic education and her studies in social anthropology and ancient history, which she completed at UCL in London (1995) followed, later, by a degree in fine arts at the Slade School of Art / UCL, London (2000) and a Masters in painting at the Royal College of Art, London (2004).

Precisely the combination of the anthropological theoretical element and the visual pictorial one gave life to her famous performances: the first with its scientific apparatus of interpretation of archaic cultural and survivals rituals in our society, and the second imbued with codified images of religious and mythological origin. This combination is the basis of a language that Chetwynd mixes with the use of different media, including performance, painting, collage and film.
In 2019 Chetwynd created a huge print covering the floor and walls of the exhibition space for Toxic Pillows, an exhibition at the Museum De Pont in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Among these reproductions there is a painting by Antonello da Messina, St. Girolamo, actually displayed at the National Gallery in London where the saint is depicted while sitting in his study in contemplation of the sacred texts.

Against this background Chetwynd built a series of structures that overlap the ‘classic’ painting and that serve as a support to the actual performance, thus superimposing popular culture on high culture, rehabilitating it and giving it a primary role within the building of an organized society.
Hell Mouth 3 presented at Eastside Projects in Birmingham in 2019 comprises a huge cardboard sculpture that shows a monstrous mouth, a scary and funny image at the same time. In Chetwynd’s performances there are hideous monsters, mutant characters, half man and half animal, traditional and techno music mixed, in a series of events randomly linked and apparently products of chance.

In Prolific Potato (2019) at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, a performance included different interventions that combined the many parts and components of dance, music, folk and sculpture in a dimension that one could say recalls elements from the Bauhaus theater to the Panique Movement & Alejandro Jodorowsky, from the Dada movement to the Happenings of the 1970s.
Chetwynd recreates historical cultural events following a vague and abstract narrative and pursuing a rough, bric-a-brac aesthetic that highlights the gap between reality and interpretation.

The intention is to intervene in the space of the museum by creating a moment of pure and noisy spontaneity.
Often the idea for a performance comes from a dialogue or a meeting with a friend or family member. From this conversation discourses emerge that are developed and improvised upon during these temporal works that is developed and reproduced in the scene.
The moment of the ‘live’ performance are indelibly marked across her works; various elements, including costumes, props and scenery, are incorporated into sculptural panels and installations.
To reproduce the same energy of the performances Chetwynd creates a series of panels that are made of the backgrounds created for the performances with copies of ancient paintings and illustrations on which the costumes and props of the performances are installed.
In The Owl with the Laser Eyes at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, in Turin (2018), a giant bat with open wings and a root-man creature, were presented together with other stage costumes. Then, moths resting on a sacred scene, yellow and red salamanders that seem to enter and exit the black and white background of the reproductions of ancient installations are also part of the series.

The stage costumes enrich this fantasy world with colorful butterflies, turtles, characters reminiscent of cartoons and the terrible heads of Gorgons, monstrous mouths ready to come to life at any moment and eat the fear.
This joyfully chaotic universe full of destabilizing humor is also part of the Bat Opera series of paintings. Indeed, bats have a particular role in the artist’s creative universe that of anti-heroes, protagonists of a dark scenario with the task of de-mystifying the reality of traditional values.
Chetwynd’s continuous experimentation also extends to the production of films; ranging from documentations of the performances such as Conan The Barbarian (2000), Gatsby (2001), Prolific Potato (2019) to the more experimental works of Pasolinian influence, such as Face Cream (2018), Dogsy Ma Bone (2016) and the realization of the TV series The Green Room (2014) and Hermitos Children (2018). In an interview, the artist said that Hermitos Children was referring to Pasolini’s film Accattone (1961); where a narrator provides commentary on film in front of a live performance. In this way Chetwynd documents the performances, transforming them into a continuous narrative.

Recent solo shows and major exhibitions include those at De Pont, Tilburg (2019); Villa Arson, Nice (2018); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2018); Ze & Per, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2018); Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); Bat Opera 2, Massimo de Carlo, Milan (2014); Nottingham Contemporary, 2014; The Monteverdi Gallery, Castiglioncello del Trinoro, Monteverdi, Italy, 2013; Home Made Tasers, Studio 231, New Museum, New York, 2011–2012 and Odd Man Out, Sadie Coles, London, 2011. Her work has been featured in numerous group shows, including The Dark Side. Chi ha paura del buio?, Musia, Rome (2019); The Seventh Continent, 16th Istanbul Biennial, İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, Istanbul (2019); NOW, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art | National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2018); Liverpool Biennial 2016, Liverpool (2016); Film London Jarman Award 2014, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2014), L’Almanach 14, Le Consortium, Dijon , France, 2014; Performance Now: The First Decade of the New Century, curated by Rose Lee Goldberg, various venues, USA, 2012–2014; Göteborg, International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Göteborg, Sweden (2013); Performa 13, New York (2013); Aquatopia, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK; Tate St Ives, St Ives, UK, 2013; Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London, 2012; Topsyturvy, de Appel, Amsterdam, 2012; British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, various locations, United Kingdom, 2010–2011. In 2014, Chetwynd organized important solo presentations at Studio Voltaire, London; the Center for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, and Tadeusz Kantor CRICOTEKA, Krakow, Poland.

Spirits and demons, all the characters in Monster Chetwynd’s work and even herself are nowadays Totems that disrespect the rules of our broken society projecting deep emotional impulses.
Bats, butterflies, salamanders and gorgonian masks translate the collective affective investments that populate the world. A universe of feelings that interlace our reality. But acts, surges and emotional attitudes bring not only pleasures; they are also the nest of our sense of guilt: they overlap the real and indeed become a substitute of it, with all their meanings and interpretations. These impulses emerge in Chetwynd’s performances raising reality to a different level, and pushing to omnipotence the ensuing conflict with reality. It is precisely at this point that these animated masks, release the most derisory and demonic aspect, and intervene to reconcile this conflict awakening solidarity within those who live within the same human clan.