Brisbane based Indie band ‘Local Authority’ released their album Memory Loss, July 2024, and I had the amazing opportunity to do the cover art/collage.
Collage has become a bit (a lot) more important to me than I have previously realised.
I have always recycled images; book covers for school, study room pinboards, every sketch book I’ve ever owned. I actually forgot that my first ‘art commission’ was a collage for a school friend’s sister. $40!
visual diary/late teens
It’s such an accessible technique; anyone from anywhere can sift through a pile of papers, collect images that their subconscious has found significant and put all that visual information in a thematic composition that takes on a new narrative, a new point of view, a new piece of art.
I think that’s a bit awesome.
And I’ve let go of feeling that a reverent approach to everything in print means that I shouldn’t dare discombobulate, appropriate.
Artist/filmmaker Jim Jarmusch sums it up much better than I ever could-
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery- celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to”.
Cover aesthetics/
Neoclassicism
Northern Renaissance (i.e. Hans Holbein)
Late 1700's early 1800's French Portraiture
Sculpture - Ancient Greek
Black and white photography of sea life/ National Geographic
Back cover before final edit/
In addition to the cover aesthetics,
Surrealism (i.e Salvador Dahli)
Corporate Sculpture
Pre-Raphaelites
Entomology Studies
Japanese Lithograph
1920's Modernism/New Objectivity
The following Lyrics are from track 6/’Burn’ :
lift the colour from the world
peel it back just to observe
fall in a haze and watch it burn
a dreamless state from no return
nothing gained and nothing learned
float upstream and watch it burn
There are no filler words. No ego deflection. Only a Kafkaesque/David Lynch deliberation to be functional against a very real and very debilitating existential alienation.
To me, this fusion of realism/fantasy is a smoke and mirrors beauty handing back its meaning … gently… to a fellow observer who feels a bit similar.
I think that’s a bit brilliant.
https://localauthority.bandcamp.com
Find them at:
raincoats for penguins 
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