art // drake ghosts by anthony hawley
my friend/amazing artist anthony hawley has been making some awesome daily drawings inspired by drake's recent hotline bling video.
anthony on this inspiration: "it’s a really catchy song; like i’ve listened to it dozens of times, but it’s such a weird and bizarre music video. think about what the video would look like without the turrell-inspired spaces. it would essentially consist of a good-looking drake sitting on steps, posing, and dancing around by himself; good-looking women posing on stairs and moving in slow motion; then drake and one of his female dancers joining forces to do some synchronized moves together. the turrell-inspired spaces are beautiful, a little ufo-like and provide an amazing glow of color, but at the same time there’s really no reason whatsoever that the turrell spaces are there. half the video looks like an itunes add circa 2004 and half of it creates this sense of space that’s reminiscent of the original tron or star wars. i keep thinking that those slow motion pan-outs by the camera are going to expose drake as a tiny player in a giant video game or that the millennium falcon is going to appear, caught in the death star’s tractor beam, and plow down drake. by far, the most interesting parts are drake’s hand motions and movements. they’re glorious! in all my drawings drake has six fingers on each hand.
i liked the idea of doing a series of small drawings where drake and turrell kind of haunt each other and meld. the drawings use an existing set of imagery from other small drawings of mine and expand on it. the little ghostesses seemed to fit the zeitgeist of the music video. i mean why wouldn’t you make drawings of drake and turrell turning into ghosts?
i’ve always been a bit obsessive with my listening. like i just get obsessed with a sound, a mood, or a theme in a certain song or album and i can’t stop listening to whatever it is. and there’s not really a logic—it ranges from oneohitrix point never to mozart string quintets to demi lovato. i don’t necessarily love demi lovato or anything about her, but last friday i think i listened to “cool for the summer” all day non-stop without any breaks or anything in-between. i think that i’ve been like this since i started listening to pop music when i was six or seven, sitting by the stereo recording different top 20 hits with cassettes at the end of each year. sometimes it’s not even an artist i love; it’s just a sound, a synthesizer, or an explosive moment, you know? then this all feeds into my daily practice and art.
there’s a link between the obsessive listening and the daily practice that i’m just now becoming aware of—the doing something over and over to get to a feeling or idea without thinking too hard about it."
check out his drawings and purchase them here on his site!
