Lunatics

Xxijra Hii is pleased to present ‘Lunatics’; a solo show of new paintings by David Micheaud.

In this show Micheaud surveys the seemingly random acts of lunacy that present themselves in the hierarchical structures of society; inciting new and unexpected modes of looking.

We often take value for granted, it’s code of judgement, status or personal attachment in our daily lives. Individuals assign value to objects, experiences and space. Society has a collective role in how we are able to translate this worth into a language accepted by our peers. In a world of mass consumption this language is at breaking point with continually new materials, processes, ethics and descriptors entering the multiverse; with self-assigned leaders all grasping at authorship. In a world where hierarchies are breaking down, leadership is saturated and the masses increasingly have a platform, how might we start to look at things differently? What is the new mode for the perception of value?

Take the painting ‘Two Red Plastic Things’, where the artist discovered a shiny red but discarded ball in the gutter by their house. An attractive object to the eye, but ultimately a piece of litter. By taking a photograph for later reference, Micheaud assigned a value to the ball in the moment of capturing it’s likeness on his phone. The composition highlights a comparison reflective of the also discarded ketchup wrapper beside it, pairing two unlikely objects and stimulating a new way of looking or understanding them.

The following day, Michead was approached by local children searching for the same ball, hyperactive and delighted to hear he could fetch it for them. The object held such high value and nostalgia for the children, yet a complete disregard for the wrapper made of the same shiny attractive red material somewhat entertained Micheaud in this exchange. It felt ridiculous from the state of these objects as both ‘discarded’ pieces of trash, yet one yielding high worth in the eyes of the children. By contrast, both assigned an equal value in the eyes of the painter, a new vocabulary born of contemplative looking.

The action of photographing these objects brings nostalgia to the fore. As humans we are often obsessed with keepsakes or momentos, made even more accessible with the dawn of camera phones and digital albums. Capturing slices of time and space in abundance as we move through our often time-poor and burdened lives.

Nostalgia by its very nature can be defined as static or retrogressive, continually forcing the beholder into the past and preventing progress. Compare this to the cyclical depiction of melancholia as described by Freud, and you are stuck in a loop, forever turning toward the things that feel familiar; unable to let go. Freud describes this loop as an unhealthy attachment in relation to processing loss, you are unable to move forwards; as time itself does. When we capture moments on our phones, we are immediately abstracting the happening, allowing us to move on beyond the palm-sized image we retain.

Catherine Opie once said that “The biggest cliché in photography is the sunrise and the sunset”. We continuously reproduce this event and bind it to our phones, our memory banks; yet we know it will happen every day, twice a day. This beautiful moment is witnessed by everyone too, it is not special to any one person, but is initially assigned value by the individual only then to be reduced to digital wallpaper.

So why bother? Because society champions the onlooker on instagram, with their keen eye for nature, self-care and the ability to pause from the reality of a hectic modern life. This proof of existence is reduced to meaningless decoration in a sea of social media sunsets; some might say it’s lunacy yet we collectively appreciate the reference.

In Micheaud’s painting ‘Crater’, we see the total destruction and displacement of soil as a result of a nuclear mega-blast, in search of a more efficient means of moving earth for construction purposes, such as for infrastructure. In the process, those perceived to be in power, had made decisions to detonate the device, unaware of how this would affect neighbouring habitants; effectively dusting entire communities with radioactive particles 10,000 feet away. The explosion created a fallout that affected more US residents than any other nuclear test, exposing more than 13 million people to radiation. This act was the result of a small group of decision makers, in disregard of the masses they affected and unaware of the impending disaster they had set in motion. Today, ironically and perhaps somewhat humorously, Russian thistle; also known as tumbleweed, is the primary plant species growing in the crater - the lexicon of bad jokes, stagnation and retrogression.

These unhealthy loops further present themselves as the artist experienced the pandemic, unable to avoid the controlled political state we all now occupy. The few in charge have been ridiculed in this hierarchical situation we find ourselves in, perceived to be in ‘control’ and with ‘good judgement’. But where is this value being assigned? The masses that form the foundations of this hierarchy are conversing in a different language entirely, presenting themselves as a spectrum of opinions all with different ideas of what is meaningful.

In these moments we seek to take learnings and move forward, yet like nostalgia, we find ourselves caught in the loop of hierarchy. This unhealthy mode of travel means almost anything we do is an act of lunacy, orbiting our society’s need for order as the moon orbits the earth. But look out for those sunsets as they unite civilisation above societal structures. A leveller which shows no hierarchy in it’s omnipotence and reminds us of ourselves as individuals capable of pink and violet drenched sanity.

David Micheaud, born 1980 in St Albans now living and working in London.

Text by Ema O'Donovan