Kleócast
S1E4 - Martin Rayment: Mr Ray. Part One
In this episode, Lawrence is joined by Martin Rayment (otherwise known by the alias Mr. Ray) a collage artist, musician, creative entrepreneur and co-founder of The Carousel, Nottingham.
In this first half of a two-part conversation, they discuss Martin’s creative development journey, which began with the surrealist books on his parents’ bookshelf, and his many varied artistic influences, including lost comic books, British folklore and the golden age of Hollywood.
They also explore his process for creating a new piece of art, and the relationship between his music and collage work.
Listen along to find out more…
Image: Joe Clark, V21 Artspace
Music (theme): OpenMusicList
Music (Earth is Doomed): Harry Cooper, Martin Rayment
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Duration:
- 30m
- Broadcast on:
- 13 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Cleocast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Cleocast, the flagship podcast of Cleo magazine. I'm Lawrence Robertson and in this series I'm interviewing emerging artists of all kinds as they lead me down the creative pathways they've taken and offer a few insights for the benefit of anyone looking to make their own way in the wonderfully weird world of the arts. In this episode I'm chatting to Martin Raymond, otherwise known by the alias Mr Ray, a collage artist, musician and creative entrepreneur and founder of the Carousel Nottingham. In this first half of a two-part conversation we discussed Martin's creative development journey which began with the surrealist books on his parents bookshelf and the veritable melting part of his artistic influences with ingredients as diverse as the lost comic books of the past, British folklore and the golden age of Hollywood. We also explore his process for creating a new piece of art and the relationship between his music and collage work. Listen along to find out more. [Music] Anticing, temptation, proclaiming our love to the algorithm, keeping us in tune, switch on, eager to please shake off. I'm just a doubt, I'm just a doubt, I'm just a doubt why don't you let me off my leash. I'm just a doubt, it poisoned the water, killing the village people and they panicked people and it was wise to panic. For the lampton worm is evil and ambitious and it can only be a piece by offering it the milk of nine good cows. Riding the python snake, tightly round around our necks, it's tickery tendons surprise my eyes. Give us the inkling and we'll see the reputation preceding the electronic sarcophagus. Harry, Harry, lose people in a show or they might just go home. What you're listening to is just a brief snapshot of Earth is doomed, a new and exciting musical collaboration between Martin and fellow musician spoken word artist Harry Cooper, a sonic rollercoaster ride exploring the many varied facets of humanity through a highly experimental approach to music. I had the joy of experiencing this performance live which gave me a fascinating insight into Martin's creative mindset and laid a useful foundation for my interview. Here now then is Martin himself to explain his creativity in his own words. Hello Martin, welcome to Cleocast, it's really great to have you on the podcast. Starting at the beginning, how and when did you realise that you were a creative person? Yeah, so it all started from a young age when I was quite interested in replicating cartoons that I would see on the TV. I was always fascinated by comic books as well and that realm of fantasy that is that 2D world. I would draw my favourite characters and just got really interested and fascinated in drawing and getting good at that. So at a certain point as well, I discovered my dad's collection of surrealist books and general books on art. It was really interesting to delve into those, I didn't really understand them. As I grew up, they would always hold up kind of mysticism about them and they actually grew up in Germany at the time. So the books were also in German, so it added into the mystery really because I couldn't read about them, I could only decipher the titles. But yeah, it all kind of started from that age of being curious about these books and magazines that were on my parents' bookshelves which covered all different ranges of art. You know, you had Gauguin and Dali. Yeah, I was always very drawn to the surrealist artworks. Just because they were so ridiculous and funny as well at that age, as a kid you kind of see these weird depictions of humanity in a strange way. So there's real kind of mysticism within all of that. Around that time, I discovered books on Hieronymus Bosch as well, which were quite bizarre and not necessarily what a young kid should discover with no context. But it held an interesting, yeah, it kind of captimated me a bit because it was this weird thing. Like, at that age, I must have been about eight or ten when I discovered these books. Not being able to kind of fully understand what they were. You know, at that age, I kind of thought, "Oh, is this magic? Or what is this?" So, and on the flip side, I also, I was into Japanese anime. That's an interesting merging of different influences then. I can definitely understand with the surrealism, like you say, the sort of fantastical quality. For me, I can picture Salvador Dali's multiple clocks and literally bends your imagination. It did for me when I came across them, so I can definitely understand the appeal from that point of view. Definitely. And I think from that age, I just start to have a bit of a creative sort of empowerment feeling. From that age, I guess I start to have this creative drive that wouldn't stop and, you know, draw lots of pictures, read lots of comics. I kind of got really into discovering different comics as well. And I was always really interested in discovering lost comics. The comics that people had kind of discarded or were not that much in the mainstream. Two of the media that you have a particular focus on are collage and music. What is it about these media that you find appealing? With collage, the discovery of taking a piece of collage, whether it's a certain posture or face, or anything and taking it out of its context, and then placing it into a blank space or something that I've already been constructing. What really excites me is bringing that collage from its original context into something new and quite random. And in turn, that makes it really unique. That's something that really excites and fascinates me is creating truly unique pieces. And so the only way to really achieve that is to leave things up to chance and invite chaos elements into the work. I really enjoy, on the flip side, with the music, introducing those elements as well in a similar way to create unique pieces. So I'll purposefully use the same approach where I'm drawing from random sounds that I encounter and sample them into a musical setting, a context of music that I've already started constructing. I'm always quite conscious of letting go of the reins a little bit at times to allow things to become unique and exciting. If I don't know what the outcome is, it becomes a really mysterious creative adventure, really. I remember reading about this aspect of your work and the fact that there is a lot of experimentation involved and about you not wanting to have too much control all the time. Is that something that you've always had as your approach or have you adopted that over a period of time and has it had an impact upon your finished pieces? I think it's definitely something that I've learned over time. I think the way my brain tends to work is I'm a very much an over thinker. I don't classically make quick decisions. Over time, I've learned to be less precious about things and move things forward. And I've learned that through different people that I've worked with, different artists that have inspired me along that journey. One guy who really taught me that is an illustrator and an artist in his own right, Ricky Marr, and he was instrumental in teaching me how to work fast and fail fast. And that became a real turning point for me. I kind of understood that I need to move forward and not deliberate on moments or decisions too much. As soon as I started doing that, number one made work quicker, which is quite important when I'm working on the scales that I am, because some works will take a year maybe more to finish. So yeah, it's really important to move things fast and also keep decisions limited. Because as soon as I start kind of thinking about something a bit too much, that's when things become a bit predictable in terms of the art or even the music. So it's a constant balance really, but if I consciously realize that I'm taking longer, then like, let's say five minutes to decide on the position of a piece of collage, that I know needs to go on to the canvas, I'll just place it on into a position where I think it needs to go. And that often creates problems for me, for the work, because sometimes it can be a, I don't want to say a wrong placement, but it can be problematic. Maybe it draws too much attention to this area now, or it's an element that is too much, it's taking away from other things. So then it creates problems because then I have to respond to that. I add something else or maybe add like a wash of spray to hide that figure a little bit more, make it a bit more kind of in the background. But what I really love about the process is that every time these problems occur, they inevitably produce a really successful outcome that I would never have been able to intentionally create. So how do you start out? It kind of depends. I feel like I have lots of different ultimate ideas for artworks, and they're kind of swimming around my brain. Sometimes, you know, I can be, when I'm a bit distracted, I can be just deliberating on those things. And that tends to be why I work on several different pieces at once, because my mind does wander. That can be quite unproductive, but it's my brain, so it's not much I can do. And sometimes I succeed. I do finish artworks. In terms of starting a piece, I often will start with a piece of collage that I've discovered in a magazine, a certain shape, or something that feels like a starting point. And then I kind of always go from there. I set out quite a chaotic background or just create layers of a background, something that can sit behind everything. And that's an approach that I'm taking now. I always tend to have a horizon line. And I suppose part of why that is, is because I almost envision the world that I create my art in is endless. But at some point, maybe at the end of my life or my artistic life, it would be interesting to connect all those horizon lines and seeing all the different connections that are made. Ultimately, the way I like to start a piece is setting a background with a wash of colour and movement. And again, introducing all those chaotic elements, stripping paint back and applying it in a chaotic fashion. And then sort of setting the scene, I suppose, with a background influenced by certain colours. If I feel like I want to explore this colour and this background, more recently, I've been wanting to have more vibrant colours in my work. I've been adding more colours into the background, whereas before I would use quite dark tones. But yeah, it all kind of starts from flicking through old magazines, old books on Hollywood, just flicking through and seeing what draws my attention. Often it can be something quite iconic, or it can be even just a little fragment of a posture. It can even be, you know, objects and things. But for some reason or other, I'm drawn to certain things when I go through the books. I'll often pull things out, just terra page out, have a few contenders of subjects for this piece, and then quickly decide, okay, this, this is the subject. This is what I'm most drawn to. This is going to be the first focus of the piece. I've noticed, as you mentioned, the Golden Age of Hollywood as a key motif in the work that you've produced. What is it about this era that inspires and influences you? So I'm really inspired and always intrigued by the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the print media from that era specifically. There's quite a few reasons why that is, but I'll start with the mystery that it holds a certain kind of glory, like a glorious depiction of humanity. Obviously the reality of the Golden Age of Hollywood is quite questionable. There's a lot of questionable approaches to race and women within that world. That's all problematic. But it's not why I'm drawn to that. I'm drawn to that illusion that the Golden Age of Hollywood depicts. It depicts a world where everything is perfect and flawless and glamorous, and there's no bad things going on. Even the villains are somewhat ludicrous, and ultimately the villains always lose. And so I'm quite drawn into that as a theme within the work. I guess what I end up doing within that is tearing that illusion apart through the sci-fi exploration. I guess I'm intrigued by it, but also like to destroy it. I'm intrigued by how that Golden Age of Hollywood has brought us to where we are now, in terms of capitalism in this modern era. Compared to its equivalent media and magazines of today, it just feels a lot more grandiose and classy. When I use magazines from that era, it feels like I'm peering into a bygone time. It's almost like using my practice as almost like a time machine, where I take a piece of collage or a piece of print from that time and bring it into this futuristic sci-fi realm. It's always quite important for me to actually use the actual print from the magazines, which can be seen as quite destructive, and it is. But there's a motion within that that feels really important to me to have that original artifact from 1940 and bring it into this new context, this new futuristic context. And I can feel quite empowering in some ways to the subject that I'm using. Often if I'm using a pin-up model image from the kind of era where those pin-ups will be very titillating, and the reality of those models and those characters is quite sinister and not really empowering. So for me, to some degree, it feels like I'm taking them out of that context and bringing them into a new empowering atmosphere. Definitely, I think I share the attraction, because I find the contrast between, as you say, the glamour and the allure on the surface and the dark realities. I think that's a really interesting juxtaposition of two different sides of the coin, as it were. In a lot of my works kind of try and create this movie landscape, these multiple scenes, and it feels quite cinematic sometimes. As you were saying, just then it made me think about how it's almost like creating this new reality that is somewhat film-like, where these characters have a rebirth in this new and weird sci-fi realm. I find that quite interesting, but also I don't want to tie things down that much. You've mentioned that it takes you often quite a long time to complete a piece and that you work on multiple pieces at the same time. How do you know when something's finished? Is it an instinctive thing, or is there a particular step that you take that finishes a piece off? It's probably the hardest part of my practice is deciding when something is done, because I could probably, if I was given time, just carry on, and just create more and more layers and obscure more and more until I'd maybe just destroy it. But yeah, I think that it ultimately reaches a point of finality where I feel like I've concluded all the little stories within a piece or achieved what I set out to have within it. It depends really because some pieces are more simple and it feels quite obvious when things are done. But if we're talking about some of the large pieces, I guess the work tells me ultimately when it's done. It sounds quite cliche, but I reach an end point which feels like a full stop. All the different stories have been kind of tied up and ultimately it feels finished. In terms of these big large-scale paintings, that's when I do a final glaze of resin over the whole thing and that kind of ties it together. You mentioned the resin there, but I've found that really makes it a wonderful effect when I've seen pieces of yours in the depth that it creates. How did you start using that as a medium and a process? I probably came to using that probably about four years ago, but it was a technique that would be swimming around my brain as something to use. I was originally turned on to it by Jeff Liveland, who's a really fantastic painter, who also paints quite surreal landscapes and things, but he was a tutor at Nottingham Trent, which is where I studied fine art, and during one of his painting workshops, he talked about this technique of applying glazes to create depth, and he also mentioned resin being a really great way to do that, and so I'd been working in quite 2D flat collages for a while, and then, yeah, I remembered this use of resin and how effective it can be to create depth. It was around that time when I got really interested in the ability to create motion in a 2D image. That's something that I find a really important challenge in a lot of works that I make, and so the resin really helps to achieve that depth and the immersion for the viewer. In terms of the work that you do with collage and paint on canvas then, do you see that as interrelated to the music side, or are they two separate outlets that exist in parallel? Contextually, they are separate entities in a way, but I always think that the music that I make is the sound to the artwork that I make, and in more recent years I've really enjoyed marrying them up together, so traditionally it hasn't been, but I'd say in the last year, I've been focusing a lot more on joining them up, and I suppose with the new project that I've been working on, Earth is doomed. That's given me a bit of a bridge between the two. The sound side of it provides me with a kind of immersion that maybe only the viewer can get when they look at the work. It sounds quite exciting then that relatively recently you've started to merge them towards each other more, and I'm glad you mentioned Earth is doomed because I had the pleasure of seeing that performed very recently. That was a sound-based collaboration between you and Harry Cooper. Can you tell me a bit more how this came about as a collaboration and the ideas behind it? I was lucky enough to meet Harry Cooper at the carousel when he was playing with another band called Double Helix, and I was just blown away by how talented he is as a drummer, and yeah, I'd kind of been working on soundscapes and music in other bands as well, but then they'd kind of reached their conclusions in their own way. So I kind of met Harry at a time when he was curious about creating soundscapes, and he was also intrigued by what I was doing in my artwork. Particularly, I think when he came to the surface gallery show, The Decadants show, he spent a lot of time in front of the final dance piece, and I could just tell that he was naturally really curious about things that were going on there, and we figured out that we were both musically curious, and so we arranged to have a little jam. That was actually as part of the music for a film that Tom Dennis was making about my art practice. We just started playing together and then realised that we had a natural combination of styles that complemented each other. We both really enthusiastic about each other's ideas. What's interesting in Earth is doomed is the fact that it continues to play with the themes of chaos and organisation. Within this project, I would say I bring in the element of chaos and Harry maintains a kind of element of organisation in a musical fashion, and I find it quite interesting just because he is far more musically trained and capable than I am. I come from a non-musical background really. I've never been formally trained. I've always just played quite instinctively, but I've been doing that for probably the last 10 years, and so that's kind of how I've reached some level of competence. You explore quite a lot of themes, and as you mentioned, quite a lot of contrasts within that project in terms of the bits that were humorous, little bits that were darker, some of it was lighter, some of it was really intense, and there was a lot of exploration of myth and folklore and exploring the nature of British identity. Can you tell me some more about that in terms of what are you hoping to explore within those themes, and how do they all amalgamate in your mind? The approach to writing the songs that we have certainly for me has been quite similar to the approach that I have when I make art, and that has been to just relentlessly try different ambiguous things within the moment. Through the music as well, I kind of understood a bit more about what my art is about through listening back to what I'd speak or sing about in these kind of mad sessions, which is kind of thinking about what it is to be British, and to be a man in this time, and growing up in the times that we have, and what that kind of all means, and also the doom and gloom of what's happening around us, but bringing in some light to all that, and some comedy, that feels really important. So I suppose in a similar way to my artwork, where there's always a, on the surface it can look quite dark, but there's always like an undertone of comedy, and sometimes that is more strong. That feels really important in Earth is doomed, and what I'm trying to achieve with that is kind of light and dark comedy, and sadness, and kind of looking into what it is to be human. You know, again, a lot of what I look at within my artwork is exploring those unique human experiences of tragedy, and love, and existence. So looking into English myths and legends is interesting for me within all that as well. Having been born in Germany, in Berlin, and having English parents, I've always been interested and kind of clueless about what it is to be British. You know, what does it mean to be British, and kind of coming at that from very much a left side of the political spectrum, thinking about how divided things are. But yeah, I'm really curious about mystery and legends, and I just find that all fascinating. I've always been interested in theatre. One of the things I studied at college was theatre, and there was a point where I had to make a decision. I was either going to go down the route of drama or art, so I chose art, but yeah, I've always been really interested in that kind of theatrical nature, and I think that definitely comes out when I'm performing in the band, and I really enjoy that release of being this character, whoever it is, you know, it's different in each chapter of the live setting, but yeah, I just really enjoy it. That performance definitely comes across, I think, with the different personas that you take on at different points over the course of the show. It's interesting to hear you say that there was that crossroads between art and drama, because this feels like a merging of the two. And the themes that you talk about in terms of exploring the nature of being human and myth, it's something that is an endlessly mineable source of inspiration and a subject matter that artists have always examined, but you've managed to examine it in a really fresh and different way, which I find really interesting. I think as someone who's standing on a stage, I think that I have a duty to entertain, so I try and be as immersed into what I'm doing as possible. And how did you find the process of collaborating with another person? I think the first thing that really started to work with me and Harry with the project was the fact that we complement each other in different ways. I'm naturally quite loose, and I want to just throw paint at the wall to just make it happen. He can be a bit more methodical and planned, and so we find a middle ground and compromise. I think through that we draw out those elements within ourselves. I've encouraged him to be a bit more free with the things that he does when he plays guitar and also does spoken word, and he's kind of encouraged me to be more thoughtful and decisive in the things that I'm playing and doing. We believe in each other's ideas, and we're open to supporting those wherever we can. One of the most useful tools that I've introduced is recording every session that we do. So basically, I have a pair of Zoom recorders, and when we rehearse every Sunday, well, most Sundays, I'll set those up and it will record what we're doing to, you know, a studio standard. We'll record the session, and there'll be lots of stuff that hasn't worked or, you know, is unusable, but then there'll also be things that are really interesting, moments where we've decided, oh, let's try these different things, or individually, if we're in the zone and we've decided to try out something completely off the script sort of thing, then we'll be able to listen back to that during the week. What's great about that is I kind of lead on recording the actual sounds and then bounce it off to Harry when we listen to it, and then when it comes down to actually doing serious recordings and mixing things properly, that's where Harry really comes into his element. So it feels really productive in that sense, and we both take it quite seriously, and that means that we're slowly building up a real body of work. I find the range of sounds that you use, as well, a unique flavour to what you're doing. I've seen you work with audio mixers, with different things feeding into them, with cassette players, with a trombone, with a guitar. Do you have a mental library of different sounds? I think another thing is a lot of what I describe as vintage sci-fi sound effects that come into play. Do you have a mental library for, oh yes, that sound, I've got that somewhere, and that'll sound good here, or I can mix those two things together, and that'll sound interesting. It seems to me almost like the audio of equivalent of cutting bits out of old magazines for college is. It's almost like the sound equivalent of that, so how do you choose those bits of sound that you put in? There's a definite similarity there that you've spotted using all these different tools to create soundscapes. I'm often introducing cassette tapes from audiobooks, come really interested in rediscovering stories from my childhood. Actually, one of the shows used the original Hobbit audiobook, which I know you enjoyed. Yeah, that was the moment I thought this speaks to me. I'm on board with this. Yeah, so I kind of just bring in that into that sort of modern context, and also for the listener, introducing some of that nostalgia and discovery, or rediscovery, as it happens, I think is really important. A lot of what I delve into is about coming of age, and what it is to be human and alive. Another thing that I did for this show was I kind of wanted to really express what I was being fed by overall media at this point in time. You know, I'm certainly falling into the trap of Doom Scrolling Instagram, which is the thing that we're all coming to terms with, but I think it's also interesting what you're fed by the algorithm, and so I was curious to record what I was being given by the algorithm, and so I played some of that during the show, and I just find that quite interesting just because like the different things, like obviously the algorithm kind of knows that I'm a man, I'm in my 30s, and so there's just an interesting array of content that is served to me. That isn't to other people, you know. I find that all quite curious. The algorithm sometimes will throw things at you to attempt you into buying things. There's also a lot of toxic masculinity that is rife in this realm, and it's a lot of things that you just wouldn't really encounter without this specific form of, you know, media. So yeah, I found it quite interesting to just record some of that. I find that really interesting. It's like the most current thing that we're all exploring. We're all going through the same thing, which is completely new and kind of scary, and so with the music, I want to explore that side of things a bit more. It feels more current than maybe the art side of things where the process is similar, but it's more surreal and it does explore those themes, but like in a much more ambiguous and illusionary way. That was the first half of my conversation with Martin Raymond. Next time on Cleocast, you'll be hearing more from Martin as we discuss the role of chaos in his creative practice. We'll explore the idea of an artist's duty to entertain alongside the value of art and reflect upon the decadence of Mr. Ray exhibition, celebrating Martin's first 10 years as an artist held at Nottingham's Surface Gallery. We'll also be delving further into his role as a creative entrepreneur, as co-founder and director of the Carousel, a vibrant Nottingham artist studios and event space. I ask Martin what, in his opinion, are the traits most necessary for creative success, and he shares some of his top tips for other up-and-coming artists. If you like what you've heard so far, don't forget to subscribe, that way you'll never miss another episode, and if your friends are interested in art and creativity, why not share it with them as well. You can also support us by leaving a review to help get the word out and allow others to find us. If you'd like to find out more about Clear Magazine, head on over to clearmagazine.com, where you can learn all about the project as a whole and discover a variety of new content published on a regular basis. You can also follow us on Instagram and X at Clear Magazine to stay up to date with all the latest developments and more. Like, follow, share, let us know what you think. Clear Magazine is a brand new and growing platform, and your support is truly appreciated. I've been Lawrence Robertson, and until next time, thank you for listening to Clear Cast.