Faking It?

Was thinking earlier this evening of one of my rare encounters with a visual artist. It happened in Todmorden of all places and I was in the unlikely company of Tony and Ann. I think it took place just before I came to Singapore, around 1987, and it was all entirely accidental. We were just wandering around of a weekend, exploring the area, when we caught sight of the artist's shop, a small one, not anything like a gallery, and popped in just out of curiosity. The guy's name was Bohuslav Barlow, and his work was quite impressive in a spooky kind of way. We were able to see a fair amount of it in a restaurant in the area, some time after meeting Mr Barlow, as they'd put on a display of some of his pieces for sale there. The canvases were way too big and expensive for the likes of me, but I bought a book entitled Visual Alchemy at the shop with some rather fetching illustrations. Chatting with the artist was interesting in a sort of professional kind of way. He didn't try too hard to sell us anything, and said little or nothing about matters of 'inspiration' and the like, but was forthcoming about his art classes and what it was like trying to earn a living in that part of the country.
 
For some reason all this came back to my mind earlier this evening and I suddenly realised I might well find something on the WWW about the guy and, hey presto, I found his website almost right away - after figuring out how to spell his first name. The thing that really stood out in mind about our meeting related more to Tony than the artist himself, oddly enough. Tony seemed convinced that the work we saw (which included a few of the paintings featured on the website) was a kind of con. It wasn't that he thought he couldn't paint, and do so very well - I don't think anyone with eyes would dispute that. No, what bothered Tony was the choice of subject matter. He was convinced that it was contrived to appeal to folk who liked stuff that was a bit spooky, a bit occult, a bit surreal.

But he really couldn't deal with what I thought was an obvious rejoinder to all this: what did it matter if it was all a bit of a fiddle if you were able to respond to the pictures with enjoyment - and possibly a touch of dread - and wanted to put one or two on your walls to keep doing so? I suppose this simplicity of outlook lies behind my enjoyment of the kind of modern art that bothers so many. As long as I like it I don't care what it means or whether I'm being tricked. Sometimes you can try a bit too hard to guarantee your money's worth, you know.

(Should just say for clarification's sake that BB's work is so obviously not 'faked' in any sense that I did wonder just a little about Tony's sanity. But that's what being an engineer does to you, I suppose.)