Daniel Johnston.
Musician and artist Daniel Johnstons career has spanned over 20 years and has gained cult following after an appearance on MTV in 1985 and he has gone onto influence bands such as Sonic Youth, Sparklehorse, The Flaming Lips and Yo la Tengo.
Johnston's art and music have always been inter-twined, his hand-drawn album covers saw the start of the recurrent themes that can be seen in this exhibition such as Captain America, Casper the Ghost, Flying Eyeballs and Jeremiah the frog- who appears on the album 'Hi, How are you' and was also the image on the T-Shirt Kurt Cobain wore repeatedly in 1993.
Johnston suffers from bi-polar disease, schizophrenia and manic depression and has been continually admitted to various mental institutions, which has helped heighten his cult status in both music and arts circles- he is now considered one of the icons of outsider art and music.
Red Wire presents a variety of works containing the repeated themes of imaginary worlds and figures that are on display, depicting a slice of Daniels imagination expressed through his drawings the Devil and the balance are good and evil are the overwriting content behind the images. It shows a world in which there are battles between good and evil, with a pathos, simplicity and undeniable humour.
Daniel Johnston lives and works in Waller, Texas. He has recently exhibited his work at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen (2007), The Whitney Biennial (2006), Clementine Gallery, New York (2005) and Arts Factory, Paris (2005). In 2005 Jeff Feuerzeig's documentary 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' won the Director's Award at Sundance Film Festival.
DANIEL JOHNSTON, 'FEAR YOURSELF'
To 2 Nov 2008.
Red Wire Gallery
Carlisle Building
67 Victoria Street
Liverpool L1 8UX
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