Lovely Little Girls
Written by Max Stout   
Friday, 25 July 2008
Page 2 of 3


GD:
What connections are there between your music and your art?  I can say what I see are the parallels, but I'd love to know what you think the music and the art derive from each other, and inspire in the other.
     



GJ:
In my paintings I play with meanings and visceral responses to bodies and their offal. In the music, I work with tangled forms to create a mood- something like a tangled polyrhythm with sour chords. But like the pustules of the paintings, I try to make the ugliness beautiful and transcendental.

GD:
In your music and paintings, what is it that you do to
'make the  ugliness beautiful'?  Like your music, your paintings
are so rich with color and so full of emotion, but the content borders on the disturbing, What is it that’s so appealing to you about the delicate balance between those extremes?


GJ:
I'm not sure you can concoct a formula for making the ugly beautiful, so I can't really say. I think it's something that manifests itself with my obsessions. Often people have a clichéd template on how they make the disturbing be cute. I think it all comes down to a love of form. Take Captain Beefheart for example.  Trout Mask Replica or Lick my Decals Off Baby, it's ugly music but it's approached in way that the band loves the forms, or at least in this case, they lived those forms for a year, practicing over and over again. It becomes ingrained, the norm. When the ugliness is presented as 'other', that's when it becomes a one-dimensional signifier rather than being rich with tangled meaning and emotion.

Image

GD:
In your paintings the faces of your characters are uniquely odd. Who is it that you see that way, and why do you feel compelled to paint them?

GJ:
Face are the toughest but most rewarding. I am always attracted to unique faces and have thousands of pictures in my filing cabinet for reference, but I can't paint  someone's likeness if my life depended on it. I am really particular about the faces, though. I paint over them, scratch them out, build them back up until they are perfect. There's a bit of distortion but it's very subtle, and maintaining that is the biggest challenge. I am happy when the character looks oblivious but giddy, revealing something deeper. They are sexy faces, but I avoid the usual clichés of some porno "come hither" look.  It's more about these characters existing in their own little world and their absurd masturbation and sexual rituals. It isn't always about genitals either.   People get off on so many obscure and personal ways.


Image

GD:
In your music what stories do you tell?  Where do your ideas come  from?


GJ:
I wouldn't say I tell stories, if I do they usually evolve out of something I am writing where an obvious sequence of events occur.  My method of writing is very non-linear, using cut-ups, writing down ridiculous phrases that I hear from people. I jumble them up and reassemble them into something cohesive. I write about situations; usually someone being humiliated in methodical ways, as if it is their daily ritual.  This obviously runs off into my painting. Lovely Little Girls songs have been getting more linear in structure so I see more narratives evolving from me having to write in more in that manner.


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