Inspired by feminism and the politics of sexual liberation, Caroline Coon’s paintings contest binary notions of gender and oppressive patriarchal values. Her works cover a variety of subjects including sex workers, beachgoers, intersex people, still lives, football players and urban landscapes. All are united by Coon’s unwavering rebellion against the status quo.
What role does spontaneity versus intention play in your creative process?
The first sparks of an idea come spontaneously to me, then there is the slow process of either rejecting the idea or rendering it into a creative intention.
How do you approach balancing aesthetics with political messaging?
Aside from my belief that everything in human life is political – deciding to make art that is not political is a political decision – when I am composing a painting, the first consideration is aesthetics. The silent experience of a painting has primacy over any subject or meaning although, occasionally, I do like my work to be a visual shout out loud!
Caroline Coon, Skinscape, Giclée Print on Hahnemühle German Etching,
You were a leading protagonist of both the 1960s hippy counterculture and the 1970s punk scene - how did those moments shape your worldview and practice?
What I learned as an activist and artist during those socio-political eras was crucial to my understanding of how democratic politics works, indeed how hard people have to work to persuade and affect any kind of democratic political change. I saw how difficult it is to get people to vote. We criticise politicians and they are pilloried in all media, but a flourishing democracy depends on them and their ideas.
Left: Caroline Coon, The Evangelist Angel - A Contemporary Illumination from The Book of Kells (800AC) | Right: Caroline Coon, The Evangelist Eagle - A Contemporary Illumination from The Book of Kells (800)AC
Both included in AOAP Projects' Summer Show Illuminated at the Royal Society of Arts
Can you expand upon the themes and preoccupations behind the pieces ‘The Evangelist Angel,’ and ‘The Evangelist Eagle’ that you’ve created for this show and how they respond to the ‘Illuminated’ theme? You mention they’re inspired by The Book of Kells, a 9th century illuminated manuscript containing the four Latin Gospels of the New Testament.
Since I was a teenager, what intrigued me about the Book of Kells was the way ideas about how to live a civilised life were put into words that were considered so sacred that only the most exquisite art could do them justice. Words were the wisdom of an all-powerful God high above us, beyond our human domain. Illuminating and inhabiting the words of text in the Book of Kells are throngs of animals – cats, wolves, snakes, fish, mice, peacocks – and composite human-animal creatures, often with wings.
For my two pieces, I’ve chosen to present a winged human-angel ‘The Evangelist Angel,' and a winged human-eagle 'The Evangelist Eagle,' to suggest how persuasive ideas can fly between earth bound facts and the otherworldly realm of creative imagination.
Pages from Caroline's 1964 sketch book, inspired by The Book of Kells
Looking at today’s political climate, what issues feel most urgent to you as both an artist and activist?
People have always dared, often to the point of death, to challenge doctrine and ideology. In the 17c to 18c European Enlightenment, Coffee Shops were places where people could meet to exchange, expound and explore all the ideas that have become incorporated into our democratic, secular laws.
As it has ever been, the most urgent issue for all of us today, I think, is the freedom to discuss and debate ideas without censure or punishment.
Caroline's work is featured as part of the AOAP Projects' Summer Show Illuminated at the Royal Society of Arts. The exhibition is on view from the 10th - 23rd June at the RSA and on our website.
Questions by Kate Reeve-Edwards
Banner image credit: John O'Rourke
