When Love Redefines What Hate Has Perverted
As a creator, the blessing that comes with being able to define my own visual art entities is not only the freedom to give life to what I see or feel within me, or to revisit elements that once were and redefine them all entirely, but also to spark new sensations and to stir new conversational reactions with others. So when someone sends me a message to share what a design evokes in them, good or bad, it’s a real privilege for me to further discuss with that person. It’s the start of a voyage of dissimilar perspectives and genuine open hearts. For me, it’s never about right or wrong, beautiful or repulsive, it’s always about authenticity.
I’m from the punk and hardcore scene. I grew up with the deconsecration of symbols, the reshaping of images, and the removal of any power imagery some might have for the sake of collective conventions. That’s what initially appealed to me as a kid, that enfranchising type of expression. It’s the possibility of speaking without a word being said, of deciding that no one could force me to acknowledge what they wanted me to see, to feel, or to have me submit to through their visual usurpations. It’s a retrograde perspective now, as everything needs to be sanitized for fear of hurting anyone’s feelings… But aren’t we all suffering from one thing or another? How can we set ourselves free if we are never confronted with those hurting elements? How can we outgrow our pain if we are never shocked and dumbfounded? How can we grow and learn if we are never surrounded by any discordant opinions and world views? Isn’t it precisely our emotional isolation and the avoidance of our differences that are at the root of all our fears, of all our miseries and confinement?
We’ll be confronted with our trauma one way or the other. We might want to believe that life is a TikTok reel and that reality is an Instagram filter, but unfortunately – or thankfully – it is not. It’s quite the contrary, actually. You’ll be confronted. It’s one of the very few blessings we can not only count on but also rely on. It happened to me last night as Ben, Jeff, and I were talking about the necessity we all have to commune with someone else, to belong, to break the cycle of loneliness and isolation, and how nowadays’ social fabric is dangerously fractionated based on the new self-righteous preachers telling us what to do or bullying their way until we submit. The conversation then shifted to the concept of religion, because that’s what we’re facing right now with the ultra-sensitive offenses and community divisions over small details, while the magnificence of our common thread is the defying willingness to embrace everybody’s utmost dissimilarities. And when we talk about religion, it doesn’t take much for me to inflame myself and turn a conversation into a litany of “passionate” comments. And it’s all based on the very same reality; years of abuse.
I used to be disproportionately angry and sickly bitter any time I would witness any Christian-related imagery. I swore I would never set foot in a church ever again, and that I would never open a Bible anymore. The pain was deep and vivid. It’s been more than a decade now and I finally got myself out of that particular place. Meeting with musicians and artists “believers”, I confronted them with my version of the truth. Even though they had nothing to do with what I had experienced in the past, sharing and arguing with them, both artistically and dogmatically, led me to reconnect with the essential, to reappropriate what had always been mine, to reconcile with my spirituality rather than allow perverse appropriators to deprive me of something important in my life any longer. Those quarrels and clashes helped me rediscover the allegorical vision I instinctively had but fiercely fought against for so long, both as a person and as an artist. Yes, we all have traumas, but social discomfort and relational friction remain the great emancipators… Always. I firmly believe that art has a major role to play in our self-emancipation, whatever form it takes, tasteful or not. There is a whole lot of tasteless expressions, but they all serve an indispensable purpose… Some for the better, and, thankfully, some for the worse as well… It’s all about authenticity.
We’ll be confronted with our trauma one way or the other. We might want to believe that life is a TikTok reel and that reality is an Instagram filter, but unfortunately – or thankfully – it is not. It’s quite the contrary, actually. You’ll be confronted. It’s one of the very few blessings we can not only count on but also rely on. It happened to me last night as Ben, Jeff, and I were talking about the necessity we all have to commune with someone else, to belong, to break the cycle of loneliness and isolation, and how nowadays’ social fabric is dangerously fractionated based on the new self-righteous preachers telling us what to do or bullying their way until we submit. The conversation then shifted to the concept of religion, because that’s what we’re facing right now with the ultra-sensitive offenses and community divisions over small details, while the magnificence of our common thread is the defying willingness to embrace everybody’s utmost dissimilarities. And when we talk about religion, it doesn’t take much for me to inflame myself and turn a conversation into a litany of “passionate” comments. And it’s all based on the very same reality; years of abuse.
I used to be disproportionately angry and sickly bitter any time I would witness any Christian-related imagery. I swore I would never set foot in a church ever again, and that I would never open a Bible anymore. The pain was deep and vivid. It’s been more than a decade now and I finally got myself out of that particular place. Meeting with musicians and artists “believers”, I confronted them with my version of the truth. Even though they had nothing to do with what I had experienced in the past, sharing and arguing with them, both artistically and dogmatically, led me to reconnect with the essential, to reappropriate what had always been mine, to reconcile with my spirituality rather than allow perverse appropriators to deprive me of something important in my life any longer. Those quarrels and clashes helped me rediscover the allegorical vision I instinctively had but fiercely fought against for so long, both as a person and as an artist. Yes, we all have traumas, but social discomfort and relational friction remain the great emancipators… Always. I firmly believe that art has a major role to play in our self-emancipation, whatever form it takes, tasteful or not. There is a whole lot of tasteless expressions, but they all serve an indispensable purpose… Some for the better, and, thankfully, some for the worse as well… It’s all about authenticity.
That’s why, when I create, may it be music, poetry, or illustrations, I remind myself that if everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial, meaning that even though I don’t have any creative limits, I have to remain faithful to my vision: as long as it encapsulates an honest sentiment, a spark of life or hope, I can go as far as I see fit. I would rather admit that I’ve missed the mark than refrain from doing something I believe in just to avoid being called out by someone. Safe is the enemy of progress, and status quo is the ally of self and collective repression. While we don’t have to throw ourselves in the fire to know we will burn, we all need to burn what keeps us captive of our fears so we can evolve, once in a while. It comes as no wonder that my existence is a sort of perpetual bonfire…! I am my most faithful persecutor and submissive tormentor. “Let it burn!” is a daily motto, a reminder that I need to “be” and that any hesitation to do so is nothing but purposeful self-sabotage. So I let it all burn and see what survives and what I can find in the ashes of my own paradoxes.
That’s actually why I’m a massive fan of collages. I used to drive my father crazy as a kid, to the point that he needed to hide anything that could potentially serve as scissors. The good thing for me is that he couldn’t bind my hands nor could he stop me from ripping apart his magazines, encyclopedias, and the pages of his illustrated books. My creative “thing” – as it was a creative thing for the 5 or 6-year-old I was – was to tell an alternate narrative of my own out of components from others’ stories; transforming hunting rifle advertisements into a city takeover by a deer herd, a beach vacation commercial into a local guerrilla stand-off, or add funeral images displaying people’s grieving grim on one of a gathering party designed to promote alcohol. It was my home reality; poverty, violence, hopelessness, alcoholism, concrete backyards… It was my way of expressing my emotions but also of purging the fatalism of a reality I would otherwise allow to be condemned to.
That’s what I kept on doing growing up. Art classes were as boring as standardized. Who cares if I can or cannot draw the same freaking dead flowers as everybody else around me? Who cares if I can or cannot follow the academic rules? Isn’t art about freeing ourselves from dogmas and expressive submissions? What is art school for if not to deprogram us, if not to redefine absolutely everything? I remember the moment when we were asked to reproduce whatever static image of nature as a mid-term project. I showed up in front of the class to present my “homework”, which consisted of an old Baudelaire book, “Flowers of Evil”, ripped wide open with crushed dead leaves glued on it, a swastika symbol daubed over fresh flowers I had picked in a public garden that very same day and that were growing from the book itself. Half of the group could not stop laughing and the other half was scandalized when I presented this interpretation of mine of still life. It could have been pretty humiliating if I had cared about the exercise. I would have been destroyed had I foreseen becoming a photocopier… but I didn’t.
I nonetheless took the opportunity to explain the concept: nature emerging out of something evil. It was the abundance of life and possibilities of rebirth blooming from abomination when we dare open the book instead of closing it, hiding it, or denying its sole existence, based on whatever insensitivities we might experience. Art should produce sensations that nothing else can. Life in itself is shocking until you redefine it. That public demonstration led to a private hearing with my art teacher and a colleague of hers. I thought she would try to explain the absurdity of my decision to defy her instructions or shame me over the imagery I had used to express myself but instead, she asked me to explain it all once again to the other teacher, who said it was beautifully poetic and empowering. I didn’t know but that man was of Jewish descent. He told me that there’s no shocking factor in honesty, that nothing is “dead” in art, and that only death comes with the rectitude of our so-called need to impose our history on others. I was excused from going to that class for the rest of the semester and was granted an A+, not for my outstanding technique or my artistic brilliance, but for having the courage, audacity, and foolishness to not only give life to meaningful defiance but to stand by it in front of everybody. That situation stayed with me; the reality was that I had asked a friend to draw those freaking dead flowers for me in case my presentation would go wrong…! See, I wasn’t that brave and wasn’t that entirely subversive after all!
Fast forward decades later, I still cannot draw a stickman to save my life nor can I reproduce a fruit, a plant, a cat, or a dog to pretend I have something to show off. But I believe ever more firmly that art has the incredible ability and undeniable power to redefine everything, from our present worldviews and past horrors, up to the bleakest fatalistic visions of tomorrow. That’s why I don’t have any creative inhibition or expressive censorship anymore. Again, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. That’s my work frame. It’s about standing by what I give life to and assuming what I share with others, all that while being welcomingly open to any sort of subsequent conversation. Art is subjective to everyone, but could we see life evolve without subversion? It is true that we live in an era of ultra-sensitivity. I know because I am sensitive, but it shouldn’t compromise expression, no matter how confrontational it might be, for me and others.
That’s actually why I’m a massive fan of collages. I used to drive my father crazy as a kid, to the point that he needed to hide anything that could potentially serve as scissors. The good thing for me is that he couldn’t bind my hands nor could he stop me from ripping apart his magazines, encyclopedias, and the pages of his illustrated books. My creative “thing” – as it was a creative thing for the 5 or 6-year-old I was – was to tell an alternate narrative of my own out of components from others’ stories; transforming hunting rifle advertisements into a city takeover by a deer herd, a beach vacation commercial into a local guerrilla stand-off, or add funeral images displaying people’s grieving grim on one of a gathering party designed to promote alcohol. It was my home reality; poverty, violence, hopelessness, alcoholism, concrete backyards… It was my way of expressing my emotions but also of purging the fatalism of a reality I would otherwise allow to be condemned to.
That’s what I kept on doing growing up. Art classes were as boring as standardized. Who cares if I can or cannot draw the same freaking dead flowers as everybody else around me? Who cares if I can or cannot follow the academic rules? Isn’t art about freeing ourselves from dogmas and expressive submissions? What is art school for if not to deprogram us, if not to redefine absolutely everything? I remember the moment when we were asked to reproduce whatever static image of nature as a mid-term project. I showed up in front of the class to present my “homework”, which consisted of an old Baudelaire book, “Flowers of Evil”, ripped wide open with crushed dead leaves glued on it, a swastika symbol daubed over fresh flowers I had picked in a public garden that very same day and that were growing from the book itself. Half of the group could not stop laughing and the other half was scandalized when I presented this interpretation of mine of still life. It could have been pretty humiliating if I had cared about the exercise. I would have been destroyed had I foreseen becoming a photocopier… but I didn’t.
I nonetheless took the opportunity to explain the concept: nature emerging out of something evil. It was the abundance of life and possibilities of rebirth blooming from abomination when we dare open the book instead of closing it, hiding it, or denying its sole existence, based on whatever insensitivities we might experience. Art should produce sensations that nothing else can. Life in itself is shocking until you redefine it. That public demonstration led to a private hearing with my art teacher and a colleague of hers. I thought she would try to explain the absurdity of my decision to defy her instructions or shame me over the imagery I had used to express myself but instead, she asked me to explain it all once again to the other teacher, who said it was beautifully poetic and empowering. I didn’t know but that man was of Jewish descent. He told me that there’s no shocking factor in honesty, that nothing is “dead” in art, and that only death comes with the rectitude of our so-called need to impose our history on others. I was excused from going to that class for the rest of the semester and was granted an A+, not for my outstanding technique or my artistic brilliance, but for having the courage, audacity, and foolishness to not only give life to meaningful defiance but to stand by it in front of everybody. That situation stayed with me; the reality was that I had asked a friend to draw those freaking dead flowers for me in case my presentation would go wrong…! See, I wasn’t that brave and wasn’t that entirely subversive after all!
Fast forward decades later, I still cannot draw a stickman to save my life nor can I reproduce a fruit, a plant, a cat, or a dog to pretend I have something to show off. But I believe ever more firmly that art has the incredible ability and undeniable power to redefine everything, from our present worldviews and past horrors, up to the bleakest fatalistic visions of tomorrow. That’s why I don’t have any creative inhibition or expressive censorship anymore. Again, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. That’s my work frame. It’s about standing by what I give life to and assuming what I share with others, all that while being welcomingly open to any sort of subsequent conversation. Art is subjective to everyone, but could we see life evolve without subversion? It is true that we live in an era of ultra-sensitivity. I know because I am sensitive, but it shouldn’t compromise expression, no matter how confrontational it might be, for me and others.
I’m sharing that with you today following a rich and generous exchange I had with a European friend regarding what he saw as the Japanese imperial flag behind the hoodie “Between the Tides”. I was happy someone asked and grateful that we could commune over that design, as he reminded me of what it represents and explained the sensitivity associated with it. He was absolutely right – if you decide that it’s the imperial flag, that is. My vision of that design was way more subjective, representing the sunrise, the past, the present, the future, its anguish, its horrors, its desperation, all fading and fracturing its otherwise original vivid colors after being cleansed by the high waves standing in front of it, offering the opportunity to face what was and to redefine it with a positive perspective through a willingness to redeem what has been taken away by somebody else’s usurpation, what we have been deprived of. The sun rising, the possibilities of a new beginning, rebirth, forgiveness, even… Allowing a new generation to take back its culture, its art, if not a part of its identity, from the arbitrary grip of a past they will only be able to make peace with once they can own their present emancipation. That’s art, that’s life. And if you don’t see the imperial flag, you see a journey of sorrowful days blooming in new hopeful rebirth. You may even only see a collage of pleasant colors, of fashionable aesthetic. When I initially asked Momoka what she thought and what she felt about the different elements in the “Kimiyo” collection, she said she saw “light”. That’s art, that’s life.
I cultivate hope and rebirth in everything I do, but it all takes place in a pretty grim, solemn, and dark expressive channel. It’s not the aesthetic of my artistry, it’s who I am. The smallest fragment of candescent shine is a raging blaze when it takes place in the darkest of all environments. Then comes imagery, symbolism, interpretation, multi-layers… Life in its most vibrant and frightening spectrum, and spiritual emancipation in its non-mystical limitations. I don’t need a reason to create. We’re all creators, may it be of our own devastating demises or our healing enfranchisement’s expansion. We can do more, we can do better… Always. But honest creation goes back to our everlasting expression of love for someone, something, a community, a city, a world, or whatever else, without expecting to receive any kind of appreciation, affection, or solace in return.
And like I told my friend after he concluded our benevolent exchange by saying he was agreeing with me at 80%, I would have positively received no agreement at all. Ain’t it friendship to lovingly disagree? That generous conversation showed me, once again, that when we will all be disposed to welcome each other’s discrepancies, the world will be in a different place, far from its current cynical raging state. Who knows, it might even be as equally hopeful for everyone as we are all suspiciously divided now.
I’m actively working on seeing the colors of this new day rise up…
And like I told my friend after he concluded our benevolent exchange by saying he was agreeing with me at 80%, I would have positively received no agreement at all. Ain’t it friendship to lovingly disagree? That generous conversation showed me, once again, that when we will all be disposed to welcome each other’s discrepancies, the world will be in a different place, far from its current cynical raging state. Who knows, it might even be as equally hopeful for everyone as we are all suspiciously divided now.
I’m actively working on seeing the colors of this new day rise up…
