ライフスタイル
Life or Something Like It.
text & illustration: Korey Martin
2021年12月6日
text & illustration: Korey Martin
translation: Catherine Lealand
Looking out my window at the row of Chicago cottages, you’d never guess it snowed yesterday. Brushing my teeth, I glance in the other direction to find one of my drawings peeking at me from around the doorframe. It hangs there wondering if I will continue working on it or if it can finally settle into our apartment as another decoration amongst thrifted paintings and Jacques Tati posters.
Suspended in the twilight of our sun-deprived hallway, I spit out my toothpaste and glance once more at the drawing. Distinguishing headlight from scribble it comes into view – a pile of cars. Jayme, my baker-writer partner, calls it “Junkyard Impressionism”. She’s half-joking but it works somehow. My work can be messy, but art (or just about anything) is like a junkyard – one way to arrange a mess. The next time you sweep your floor, you might find something not unlike a Van Gogh – an arrangement of time and impressions of the ways you’ve passed it. So, painting a pond or scribbling a wrecked minivan is just a way to keep a mess around.
Isn’t “unfinished mess” the criticism which got Impressionism the name? Regardless, rather than attempting to define life, its messes are just one way to describe it. It leaves room for uncertainty, possibility – mystery. Since finishing my BFA (which took 12 years if I count the gap), I became curious about “casual mysteries”. I think of them as things that feel “strangely familiar”, like describing something without revealing what it is. What do you imagine if I describe something in my living room as “tired and fuzzy”?
My search for the strange-yet-familiar led me to City Lit (one of many great Chicago bookstores like Myopic or Quimby’s) where I found a collection of Shirley Jackson’s short stories. In this collection, she depicts the everyday as vastly mysterious, but no less mundane. Each story emphasizes a reality where nothing is absolute, and much more than you could ever imagine. In her world, and ours, mysteries (sometimes sinister, sometimes boring) are a spectacularly unremarkable fact of life.
Then what about this Junkyard Impressionism? The scribble is a headlight…or is it? Like Jackson, I’m curious about the line where knowns meet mysteries – the horizon in an Impressionist painting articulating common things with light and shadow. Covered scooters, lost grocery lists, drawings you find in old books – they’re recognizable but you can’t help but ask “Where did this come from?” Well, somewhere obviously, and it’s that inaccessible intimacy hidden in the open that I find interesting.
I hope to somehow emulate that sense of having emerged from somewhere (living) in my work. In the least, seeing my drawings alongside our soaps and kitty litter reminds me that ultimately, no matter the ideas pressed inside, they’re meant for living with, just like that tired fuzzy chair.
プロフィール
Korey Martin
ピックアップ
PROMOTION
この冬は〈BTMK〉で、殻を破るブラックコーデ。
BTMK
2024年11月26日
PROMOTION
胸躍るレトロフューチャーなデートを、〈DAMD〉の車と、横浜で。
DAIHATSU TAFT ROCKY
2024年12月9日
PROMOTION
〈バーバリー〉のアウターに息づく、クラシカルな気品と軽やかさ。
BURBERRY
2024年11月12日
PROMOTION
レザーグッズとふたりのメモリー。
GANZO
2024年12月9日
PROMOTION
タフさを兼ね備え、現代に蘇る〈ティソ〉の名品。
TISSOT
2024年12月6日
PROMOTION
「Meta Connect 2024」で、Meta Quest 3Sを体験してきた!
2024年11月22日
PROMOTION
うん。確かにこれは着やすい〈TATRAS〉だ。
TATRAS
2024年11月12日
PROMOTION
ホリデーシーズンを「大人レゴ」で組み立てよう。
レゴジャパン
2024年11月22日
PROMOTION
メキシコのアボカドは僕らのアミーゴ!
2024年12月2日
PROMOTION
〈ハミルトン〉はハリウッド映画を支える”縁の下の力持ち”!?
第13回「ハミルトン ビハインド・ザ・カメラ・アワード」が開催
2024年12月5日
PROMOTION
人生を生き抜くヒントがある。北村一輝が選ぶ、”映画のおまかせ”。
TVer
2024年11月11日
PROMOTION
〈ハミルトン〉と映画のもっと深い話。
HAMILTON
2024年11月15日
PROMOTION
〈adidas Originals〉とシティボーイの肖像。#9
高橋 元(26)_ビートメイカー&ラッパー
2024年11月30日
PROMOTION
〈バレンシアガ〉と〈アンダーアーマー〉、増幅するイマジネーション。
BALENCIAGA
2024年11月12日
PROMOTION
〈ティンバーランド〉の新作ブーツで、エスプレッソな冬のはじまり。
Timberland
2024年11月8日