Bad kittens, perked up influencers, and cringy emo content are all-too familiar images. Spend even a minute on your phone, and the white noise of the internet finds you. The question contemporary art has to reckon with: How do we extract meaning from this perpetual stream of content? How do we distill the world we live in into something essential?
In Craig Boagey’s new show, Knowledge As Alchemy, which opens tonight at Amanita Gallery (1 Freeman Alley), brilliance resides in that deja vu. His art is a feverish combination of acrylic and meme, pulling inspiration from the digital ether and layering it with his own sly commentary. Ahead of his first solo show in New York, we caught up with the Brit to chat about chip shops, pain, and process.
Tell me about your process. These were once found images?
They were. My process begins instinctually—images are gathered from whatever information I’m digesting, but predominantly through social feeds. My initial interest stems from simple, immediate engagement. There are instances when I’m attempting to source a particular image, but mostly, it’s algorithmically driven. I’m conscious of AI curated systems based on interactions and try my best to stray away from particular rabbit holes. Although, saying that, I couldn’t stop myself from making two separate paintings of weirdly sensual white cats back to back.
I’ve always been interested in juxtaposition and cognitive dissonance, which, in part, relates to what I’m trying to convey in the paintings.The relationship between algorithmic influence and human intuition is also important. Alongside images, I record words, phrases, and nuggets of text—whether from reading, hearing or just thinking. These elements are then arranged with pictures, mostly arbitrarily, and with a consideration of composition. Sometimes, however, it is important for a particular collection of words to overlay a specific image.
Where are you from originally, and how did you get here?
I’m from a small town in the northwest of England called Skelmersdale, a purpose-built new town created originally in the 1960s to bolster employment opportunities for people from Liverpool and Lancashire. I never want to appear disparaging because it was green and safe, but culturally and creatively, it was completely desolate. After leaving, I did an art degree at Central Saint Martins in London, where I still reside and work.
Is knowledge alchemy?
Absolutely, yes. But, like alchemy, it must be handled with great precision and care. It feels like an appropriate collective term for my interests and topics relating to these paintings. Alchemy as a subject spans history, philosophy, esoteric and mystical traditions—Faust, Jung. It also has contemporary interpretations like data alchemy: turning information into artificial intelligence, much like raw materials into gold.
Who inspires you?
Richard Dadd, Mary Oliver, Iain Banks.
What was the first thing you ever painted?
That I remember? A portrait of Tupac—the All Eyez on Me album cover. Growing up, though, I mostly drew rather than paint.
Favorite place on the internet?
The YouTube channel Rate My Takeaway. Host Danny visits restaurants, chip shops, and fast food outlets around the UK. It seems to have started during lockdown, and he still eats outside each visited takeaway using his own portable table and chair. Very charming, northern, nostalgic. Honorable mention to another YouTube channel, Malcolm Guite. A poet, priest, and scholar who offers musings and literary interpretations from what, to me at least, feels like Bag End.
One of your paintings features the cutest possible kitten on it with the words Pain Lord. What does it mean to be a Pain Lord?
It means you must be a towering, metallic creature covered in blades and thorns. You must often be described as the “God of Pain”, have razor-sharp fingers, and a face that is both humanoid and horrifying. Your body must be adorned with the impaled bodies of your victims. You must be indestructible, formidable, and terrifying. Simply put, you must be a harbinger of death and destruction—a metaphor for the darker aspects of humanity and the consequences of technological and spiritual exploration.
What makes this show different?
Call it British reserve, but having to explain what makes my work unique feels slightly embarrassing. The viewer is arbiter, and as such, responsible for differentiating.