Dee, from Nõi Kabát,
is an old friend of mine who, once-upon-a-time during his salad days, which he
spent partly in West Yorkshire, I managed to convince of the lie that a certain
Throbbing Gristle single was sung regularly and in unison by supporters on the
terraces of a certain Manchester football club and that I’d been there
occasionally to witness this implausible phenomena as a teen. I’ll leave you to
work out which one it was, by the way; although here are a couple of clues
for you: it wasn’t “Something Came Over Me” and it wasn't “We Hate You(Little Girls)”. I
was reprimanded years later when it dawned on him that he’d been playfully
duped and I had to ask him what he was on about because I’d actually forgotten
ever saying it...tra-la-la...any road, another friend of quite a few years now
with more than a handful of Throbbing Gristle related stories to tell, could
she be bothered, is the artist, musician, poet and partial barn-pot Val Denham,
a highly generous selection of whose art work has just been gathered together
in a most phenomenal two hundred and twenty page hardback book entitled “Dysphoria”, this published
in France by Timeless Editions: http://www.timeless-shop.com/catalog.html . UND, in
my view, to say it is an electrifying, magnetically fascinating cornucopia, an
object of such beauty that life before it already seems unimaginable, that in
just over a week since mine arrived in the post it has become an almost
sacredly-prized possession would undoubtedly be one litotic declaration of the
highest order. Oooh! I think I might just have invented a new word there in
trying to concoct a sentence which could come close to one of those crafted by
the late Leonard Sachs and, thereby, partially evoke the ambience of 1960s and 1970s
Leeds, West Yorkshire, for this is where our tale begins...but more of that in
a minute or two.
More seriously, and I’ll
repeat this at the end, undoubtedly, I cannot recommend this book to anyone
even vaguely interested in terms strong enough to do it justice. It really is
phenomenal, from the very second you first clap your eyes on it. Irrespective
of the contents, which I’ll come to by and by, the production values alone are most
exquisite, this beginning with its perfectly satisfying weightiness and
optimal proportions through to its beautiful and richly inviting red cover, from the
centre of which one of Val’s unmistakable, astonishingly rendered and hugely
arresting eyes stares confidently and magnetically into those of the reader,
sucking them towards its contents, whilst around this window to the soul, in one of her more arcane and
gothic compositions, crowd all-knowing skulls, insightful-looking, disrobed
vestel virgins and is that The Scarlet Woman from “The Inauguration of the
Pleasure Dome” centre stage at the bottom? I wouldn’t be surprised, one jot, if
it is. All are saturated red, too, in keeping with the overall
colour scheme, but also they appear like the book’s blood-inflated organs,
visible through a carefully sliced and deliberate incision made to reveal the life-force
and personality pulsing within. Around this, majestically and classically arranged in
gold, the book's details are provided, framing the previously mentioned image in
a style which, for me, concurrently bring to mind the psychedelia of, say, a 13th
Floor Elevators sleeve, the vaudeville styling of an old circus poster and the
mysterious gravity of an ancient almanac or spell-book. All three seem partially
apposite, too, when you first peruse the contents. Open it up and the front and
back inside pages are lusciously lined with thick, marbled paper on which red,
yellow and black mush around amorphously, like the contents of an over-loaded
liquid wheel. The opulence of an old school friend’s copy of Section 25’s “Always Now” album instantly
popped up from my memory when I first looked at it.
Right! I’m harping on
a bit so let’s say a little, or probably a lot, actually, about what’s inside.
Firstly, spread across its pages, distributed thematically rather than
chronologically, although of course there are temporal clumps, you will most importantly
find over two hundred artworks, almost all of them in colour and nearly each
with their own single page. Again, no corners have been cut here, in their
careful and respectful reproduction. These span an almost forty year period,
the oldest dating from 1976, I believe, and the more recent having been
produced this year and what becomes evident when looking at these is not only
Val’s incredible talent and quite brilliant appreciation for and use of colour
but also the range of media, styles, techniques and so on that she has drawn upon
(no pun intended, sorry!) over the years; yet, despite this, the work is nearly always possessed
of strongly unifying themes and motifs which bind them together into a uniquely
coherent body. In fact, during the opening sentences of one of the book’s
chapters, “What is Tranart?”, she states quite boldly that this has been a
deliberate ploy: ““I suppose that the unusual aspect of my own work is how it
differs from many other people’s in that I try to avoid one style alone...what
I’ve attempted to do is avoid style at all costs because I think that one style
only would somehow restrict me. I like a bit of confusion...I explore my
subconscious and the painting is a rationalisation of the internal conflict
that is perpetually within me, my dysphoria...Style is irrelevant to me,
content is all.”
In addition to the
paintings, then, there is quite a lot of fascinatingly revealing, candid, highly eloquent and engaging text by Val herself in chapters with titles like: “Where
Did Val Denham Come From?”; “What Was Val Denham Like As A Teenager”; “What Is
Tranart?”; “Why Does Val Denham Love Colour?”; “Why Did Val Denham Move To
London?”; “Did Val Denham Ever Do A Proper Job?”; and “What Does Val Denham
Think?” Interspersed with these are also contributions from friends, people she
has painted or collaborated with over the years, often all three, some grafted
in from other sources, some specially prepared for the book: Monte Cazazza,
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Marc Almond, Gavin Friday, Antony Hegarty, Geff
Rushton (Jhonn Balance) and Friedrich Strasse, whoever the bloody-hell that
might be.
In the first of the
Val chapters, “Where Did Val Denham Come From?”, she tells us of her background
growing up in Leeds, stating early on: “I was born a boy, but for many months
after my birth, even my mother was confused, not knowing whether to dress me in
male of female attire. Sometimes my mother thinks it’s her fault that I’m the
way that I am, but it isn’t. It’s biological, something to do with an influx of
oestrogen whilst in the womb. This has an effect on “brain sex” not developing
quite as it should. A female brain in a male body was the result for me.” This
duality is central to Val as a person and also to much of her work and she
tells an interesting, formative story of sitting on the sofa between her
parents as a child watching two television sets, each blaring out different
channels to match their disparate desires. No wonder she connected with “The
Man Who Fell To Earth” so much. She also speaks of another early influence, a
book called “The Living World of Science” she owned which was filled with
images from science, some anatomical, which she loved to look at as a child and
which included a poor quality reproduction of Da Vinci’s “Virgin of the Rocks”,
the combined contents of which were to coalesce later when informing her work.
There is also the story of her grandmother once declaring, “That boy will be
one of three things, a surgeon, an artist or a priest”, Val’s response in the
book being that, “I was certain I would be an astronaut but I was wrong and she
was completely right on one of those three vocations.” As I’ve pointed out
myself to Val in the past, when she told me this story, I think there’s a
strong element of truth in all three, actually. She was a bit of a child
prodigy, too, as she was made to go round the various classrooms at school with
drawings she’d produced so that all of the other children could go “Whoa!”, so
advanced did her teachers find her work.
“What Was Val Denham
Like As A Teenager?” then briefly traces her story through
secondary school to study art at Bradford College, who accepted who her at the
unusually young age of 16, when all of the other students were 18, this institution
winning out over Leeds’ Jacob Kramer College, who’d also offered her a place, by
virtue of its preferable architecture. The chapter ends with Val stating: “Back
in 1975, I dyed my hair, I wore make up. Students and tutors told me that I was
a genius. Who was I to disagree? My parents kicked me out of home when I was
19 but, boy, was I a handful. I can’t say that I blame them.” A couple of
highly amusing, fascinatingly revealing and eruditely expressed extracts from
Val’s diary from April 1978, which appear later in the book and were written
in the run-up to this family crisis-point, are also included and stand as
testament to this retrospective evaluation. To reveal their content to you, though,
would be to spoil that which awaits upon purchasing this treasure.
I’ve already quoted
from the four pages of “What is TRANART?” but a little more won’t hurt, as Val perfectly
explains her modus operandi: “I employ a figurative and non-figurative semi
surrealist symbolism...my art is a kind of therapy...the internal map of my
neuroses, severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Gender Dysphoria...analyse
the surface of Tranart and you glimpse neurotic hieroglyphs trying to describe
what it is to be me...meanings are always masked in a kind of visual code
within my work. Even now I employ obscuring patterns and imagery, though the
reason to do so no longer exists...I no longer live a double life suppressing
my true nature, but the code remains.” Like Vincent Van Gogh, for example, the
artist and the art are practically inextricable. I could quote and quote from
this section but won’t. You need to buy a copy of your own and read it for
yourself. However, follow my advice and you’ll find her explaining
why genitals appear so frequently in her work, how politics do not interest her
and how she proudly considers herself unfashionable and anachronistic. She even
details one or few of those obsessions.
Several years ago,
when I interviewed her for my fanzine, Val told me that the artist Patrick
Heron once described her as one of the greatest colourists he’d ever seen and, in
the section titled “Why Does Val Denham Love Colours So Much?”, she explains from
where her appreciation of colour derives, an important factor being the images
she encountered in the pages of a book called “Heraldry of the British Isles”
which she was allowed to look at when she was at school. The vivid French Ultramarine, Golden
Yellow, Vermillion or Pillar Box Red, Chrome Green, Black and real Gold ink and
their bold juxtapositions have stayed with her ever since.
“Why did Val Denham
Move To London?” and “Did Val Denham Ever Have A Proper Job?” then briefly tell
the story of her move to The Royal College of Art – she was pissed on cider
when she faced the interview panel – and her early forays into music whilst she
was a student there, firstly as The Death and Beauty Foundation and then
Silverstar Amoeba. Her first marriage is mentioned, too, as well as the birth
of her two now grown-up children, assorted jobs and mention of her only ever
solo exhibition, organised by Some Bizzare Records in the Autumn of 1987.
Amongst lots of Val
related Throbbing Gristle / Psychic TV ephemera - gig flyers, record sleeves, t-shirts and old
photographs - lies a facsimile of an interview her old pal Genesis P-Orridge conducted with her in 1980 for a magazine called “Primary Sources”. The print is very
small, however, so be prepared for a headache after reading it or a minor and temporary out of
body experience when you refocus on the telly or whatnot. I could have done
with the magnifying glass my Nanna used to use to read the paper and messages
in birthday cards when I went through it. The
eye-strain it provokes aside, it’s more than worth the effort, as quite insightful and
interesting comments abound. In the introduction, GPO describes Val as “the
most talented graphic artist working in England, an enigma of nervous gender
and exceptional skill..”, also stating, “he is young, still a student, unknown
as an artist yet very much part of the post-punk TV generation and a prime
example in his relationship with the RCA
of the shortcomings of that college in particular and the dissolute British art
scene in general.” These are themes picked up in the interview, the latter
being the most interesting to me, given what came later. In answer to the
question “What kind of problems do you face at The Royal College of Art?”, Val
replies: “One tutor told me that I was the only student who’d ever been there
that he couldn’t figure out. He just couldn’t understand what I was doing, no
matter how much I talked to him. I think that’s how most of them feel because
they’ve had years of students doing emulative art and they know what it’s about
but they don’t know what my work is about, even though I say it doesn’t matter...even
if they accept what I do, they then think I should do pictures of dead bodies
every day for 3 years with writing scrawled under every one until at the end of
3 years I have got a perfect picture of a dead body with the perfect
combination of words, perfectly scrawled under it.” Beginning to sound
familiar?
Murder scenes, portraits of murderers and
related images were quite common motifs in Val’s work at the end of the
seventies and the dawn of the eighties, photorealist drawings of Maureen
Hindley and David Smith and Mary Bell, for example, a drawing based on a
photofit of the still at large Yorkshire Ripper and another titled “Victim of
the Ripper, Xmas 1979”. There’s also a series of murder victims sprawled across
beds, done in pen and ink, a bit like Walter Sickert scenes executed by a
twisted hybrid of Aubrey Beardsley and David Hockney when he illustrated
Cavafy’s poems and produced his version of “The Rake’s Progress.” There’s even
a story not retold in the book, unfortunately, of West Yorkshire Police turning up at
Val’s door one time suspecting her of being the aforementioned serial killer,
having received a tip-off about the content of her art and her having to
painstakingly and frustratingly convince them that just because she painted
murder didn’t mean she went around doing it herself.
As the book draws
towards its close, just prior to its grand finale, Val wearing a tiara, sash
diagonally draped across her ample bosom and clutching a large bouquet of roses whilst
generously thanking all those who have encouraged and believed in her over the
years, some of those other voices I mentioned earlier are heard in a section called "Portraits". My favourite
of these is Gavin Friday who, as well as recounting how he first met Val,
describes his appreciation of the art: “...the Paintings / Drawings / Covers
all seemed so familiar to me. It was if I had known them all my life...all my “weird
dreams and nightmares” coming together...It was Dali, it was Dix, it was Ernst,
it was Chagall, it was Sex, it was Fear, it was Love, it was Hate
and most importantly...it was very Catholic...” I’d add people like William
Blake, Richard Dadd and Louis Wain to the list, too, and, when I mentioned this to
Val a few summers ago, she pointed out that, interestingly, I’d unwittingly compared her to artists who were considered mad...mmm. Val is probably most
famous for her work for Marc Almond and in a short passage where he says that
his post-accident memory loss prevents him from recalling how he first met
Val - read my 2009 interview with Val, which she has reproduced on her website (http://www.valdenham.com), and you’ll be able
to get her version of events, as well as the story of how Victoria Principal
once lured her into a tent in the school playground and then tried to kill her
with a giant needle on the grounds of her religious denomination - he does say,
though: “When I first saw Val’s paintings, I was transfixed by them, like
nightmarish religious iconography, and she played an important part in the
Mambas imagery. She has a classical super-real painting style with a twist and
wonderful technique...she’s a real artist whose fabulous exotic, intriguing character goes
hand in hand with her paintings.” Then, linked to this, the article from a 2010
issue of “Wire” magazine in which Antony Hegarty spoke of his favourite record
artwork is reproduced, this including the words: “The portraits on the Mambas
covers were highly stylised oil paintings, intensely articulate and detailed,
with a selectively applied sense of disported proportion, dimension and
brocade. The painter’s hand was skilled and classically virtuous, and yet the
content was diabolically subcultural. To this day I have never seen anything
like it. There was a dark and threatening effeminacy to the work; they seemed
magical to me as a teenager.” Being
roughly the same age as that writer, this is an experience to which I can almost entirely relate.
That’s the book,
then. I cannot recommend this book, for the second time, to anyone even vaguely
interested in terms strong enough to do it justice. It’s a complete and utter
snip, too, in my opinion, at just 25 Euros plus postage and it’s limited to
only 300 copies which are selling like hot cakes, I believe. Plus, if you’re composed of such proclivities, like anything Val related, it’s going to be
worth a bomb one of these days, so it’s an almost guaranteed investment which
could help get the kids through college or prove useful when upsizing in the housing market.
If you’re not, just get it, as life will never be the same again...and my lips
have remained firmly congealed vis-a-vis Monte Cazazza’s “Ten Obscure Facts
About Val Denham”; yet another reason for splashing the cash, of course.
Finally, but no less
importantly, besides being a visual artist, Val Denham is also a poet and
musician who, over the last thirty years, has shared concert bills with the
legendary likes of Einstürzende
Neubauten, Psychic TV and The Virgin Prunes, as well as less famous artists
such as Bjork’s pre-Sugar Cubes band KUKL and a host of others at the infamous
Equinox event staged in London in June 1983 and documented to some extent in
David Keenan’s book “England’s Hidden Reverse”. However, this version of events
seems to practically write Val and her friend Antal Nemeth out of the history
of the early eighties “industrial” scene in London, despite them being placed
quite centrally in it and their playing quite key roles in events like Equinox. More recently, she has performed solo or in
collaboration with Black Sun Productions on the continent, one gig for example
being in Amsterdam warming up for the late Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson’s Soi
Song. Plus, we’ve even had the privilege of her performing a short set in support of
our beloved Rent Boys in Leeds where, despite some technical problems and the
rather cramped, knicker and soft toy festooned environment, she went down a
storm...and wore a beautiful floral vintage dress, probably bought in Brontëland.
She’s also released numerous CDs of her music, too, many solo, and often in
hand-coloured, signed sleeves, but others in collaboration with people like the
aforementioned Black Sun Productions, Ô Paradis, Farmacia, Queen Lear, old mate
Oli Novadnieks and Sword Volcano Complex
and, no matter what she puts out, there’s always at least one genius gem to
take with you to the grave. Here’s some proof in the form of personal
favourites: “Shopping(Shoplifting)”; “Split”; “Women Destroying Bombers”; “Glow”;
“Now The Bottles Empty”; “As I Walked Out One Evening”; "You're Not My Type"; “Eat Us Mother!”; “Mandy”;
“Wondersound”; “This Time It’s For Real”; “Cobalt Blue”; “I Try To Kill The Man”;
“City Lights”; “Shine”; “Judas Fish”; “Yorkshire Hills”; “Thinking of My Girl” –
the list could go on, such that on the rare occasions I’m asked to DJ these days I have an
unwritten rule now which means always playing something by Val, as well as something by Andreas
Dorau, Boyd Rice and Cyberbeatnix.
To get to the point, “Dysphoria” is not simply
the book but also an album released just the other day on the rather bespoke
Vanity Case Records. Like all of Val’s own releases, it’s highly limited and
will be gone before you can say Jack Robinson but, just in case you want to get
one, before I give you the email address, here’s some details. Format One: Vinyl
LP in signed and hand painted cover with full colour insert in hand silk screen
printed shopping bag, twenty-three copies only. Format 2: Vinyl LP in hand silk
screened cover with full colour insert, one hundred copies only. Format 3: CD
in hand silk screened cover with extra exclusive CD of five additional songs -
'Why Does The Bitch Drink So Much?', limited to sixty copies. Again, the message is get one whilst you can. You won't regret it.
Here's the Vanity Case link and then we'll finish with a little film of Val performing live and one of her singing in her living room.
http://www.vanitycaserecords.com/
