DAVID DALEY
CAAF Residency st[art]@art central, June – July 2012
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
I have a fascination for nostalgia and love vintage aesthetics and styles. To me, learning about other eras and exploring the sense of ripeness that different times possess is fascinating. Examining the timelessness and subjectivity of modernity compels me: every age is modern for those who live in it. But what things are constant about popular culture and sub-culture and what things are ever-evolving? What remains ageless and what is a fleeting trend?
In art I like to consider the constants and variables of popular art and sub-cultures.
I have started making paintings from images taken from black market 20th century erotic material. Tijuana Bibles were illicit underground comic books which put comic characters, celebrities and even politicians of the day in sexually explicit situations. The little booklets were mass produced from the 1930s to the 1950s and I have used the cover designs to make paintings in vintage or pop-art colour schemes.
I like to produce art that has a raw visual appeal: art that I think looks good. To me, the flirtatious messaging in the Tijuana Bible covers carried over well to the paintings by expressing a playful and fun look at life and sex. Fashions come and go but some of the pleasures in life transcend the prevailing modes.