Aaron Bevan-Bailey
Born (1984)
Multidisciplinary artists Aaron Bevan Bailey was born in Peckham south London, of Jamaican and Scottish heritage. His paintings reflect having to negotiate ever changing boundaries of race, environment, identity and anonymity. The work seeks to explore the fractured connection we experience in modern society.
It is the inner sanctuary which Bevan-Bailey is striving to capture within his portraits.
“People are just a collection of stories that they tell about themselves when you remove that fragile perception of self you make room for a much deeper sense of connection awareness and understanding to happen.”
Bevan tries to paint the part of people that recalls these spiritual connections even if they cannot see it themselves. He is fascinated by the point where intentional meets the unintentional and has always thought of painting as a controlled accident. Many of his paintings start with abstract marks, allowing the form to find its own language. In turn this language has its own internal logic to the artist.
“…I see my work as a fusion of street photography and portraiture. I enjoy the ambiguity of the implied narrative we attach to people we see in the street. Everything about a person even their posture gives subtle clues about their internal world…”
For Aarons latest project he travelled to remote northern Kenya to live with and create portraits of the indigenous nomadic tribesman of the Samburu Maasai. Through familiar themes of spiritual connection this project explores the genesis of his black ancestry beyond the legacy slavery to further understand the essence of the human spirit. This new work seeks to challenge popular misconceptions of African culture and explore themes of ceremony, community and mans right relationship to nature.