It takes a lot of chuzpah and a touch of genius to invent a new genre of art – particularly one that explodes into a full-on performance on your wall. What fun to have the power to bring a two-dimensional portrait to life if there’s a lull in your party or even if you feel a bit lonely. Take our word for it - it’ll start a whole new conversation… literally!
The artistic marriage of secretive portrait painter/street artist CHAWK with charismatic music influencer and Head of Island Records Marc Marot fuses their diverse talents - with spectacular results! Both visual artists in their own right Marot, the creator of animation, music and speech and CHAWK the portrait painter, together they deliver a perfect synthesis. At a touch, technical mobile App magic allows you to play a soundbite synonymous with the iconic portrait… as you watch and become an actual part of the performance.
Experimenting with their style of “augmented reality” has reaped boundless opportunities for CHAWK & Marot and, although art has come a long way since images of Stone Age animals were scratched on cave walls, this exciting collaboration could reinvent art all over again in the 21st century.
Educated at The Surrey Institute of Art and Design and The London Film Institute, CHAWK is one of the few portrait painters in the world to use the phenomenally difficult ‘verre eglomise’ technique. By applying paint to the back of a sheet of glass (reclaimed in this case) the image is seen behind a mirror finish. Glass is fluid and CHAWK believes neither it or musical messages in general need to have perfect clarity - “as long as there’s feeling, substance will flow”.
Thus a partnership of like minds and diverse talents was formed and few people know more about music than Marc Marot, who has worked with U2, Pulp, Bob Marley and Elbow amongst others. In the mid 90s, Marc merged Island with Universal and MCA to create one of the largest recording companies in the world. Subsequently he collaborated on music for films including Notting Hill and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and since 2014 he has focussed on digital art, fascinated by the potential of merging this with technology.
Thus, the artistic, musical and technical collaboration - between CHAWK who photographs thousands of brushstrokes and sends them for animation to Marc Marot - has endless possibilities because their artwork quite literally comes alive as you paint a phone or tablet at it! What began as an experiment between these two artists has ensured instant attention from the Art World and it is one that just has to be seen to be believed.
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