JACK SOMMERVILLE
PREVIOUS SHOW IN LONDON
Apollonian / Dionysian Dionysian / Apollonian, group show
ZÉRUÌ. London, UK. March 2022
FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH CAROLINE GEORGEA HAYES
WHY DON'T YOU LIKE TALKING ABOUT YOUR WORK TOO MUCH, NORMALLY?
Well, no one ever likes hearing it, yeah? With anyone. People just kind of suck it up and bear it whilst it’s happening. No one likes it, everyone finds it boring because it’s not useful in any way that is of real value. It’s just—uh, it’s just like, regular old small talk. It’s not um I mean you’re not going to—no one’s ever going to substitute that with seeing the work. Are they?
I COULD SEE THAT.
It’s just boring. It’s just really, really boring and everyone cringes when everyone does it. Um, and I just think it’s a waste of time.
SO THEN, MAYBE LET'S TALK ABOUT SORT OF YOUR TRANSITION FROM ART SCHOOL INTO YOUR NEW STUDIO. SO YOU GRADUATED FROM CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS IN LONDON AND YOU'RE CURRENTLY WORKING OUT OF A STUDIO IN RURAL FRANCE. WHAT SPECIFICALLY PROMPTED THAT MOVE?
Well, property prices here are very, very cheap. Ridiculously—as in, not funny cheap. Very very, depressingly cheap. As in—tere’s thousands and thousands and thousands of property, as in, domestic properties, lying in absolute ruin all over the countryside. It’s so strange. Some of them have earth floors and have only just recently been moved out of. So the cost was a big thing.
Also, I seem to have gotten out at the right time. My own personal convenience, in terms of breathing room. Also, there’s something about Britian now that, it’s like the whole island—not the whole island, but—there’s an aura about it that’s a kind of penitentiary. Everyone’s sort of, everyone’s sort of begun to—obviously not everyone, but—a huge anoubt of people started being absolutely okay with letting themselves be floated away by the sort of schedule that’s been written for them. Like you have at school, or the prison system. And it makes people fucking weird, and I just don’t like being there anymore. This is a very sleepy, ancient town in rural France, and people are just sort of normal. There isn’t this constant hysteria when you bump into someone on the street. And fear. I don’t know.
March 2021