Recently, I have been following a metalcore band from Halifax, A Sight For Sewn Eyes. I had the opportunity to see this group play live at Scenefest in St. Catherine’s. The rowdiness of the band, coupled with the overcrowded bar’s poor lighting, meant none of the pictures I took turned out well. Guitarists moved too much, lights flashed, the drums and crowd were a huge mess of shadows.

When it came to sourcing from social media, I was intrigued that I was capable of translating a digital search and continuous band allegiance into a painted interpretation of A Sight For Sewn Eyes’ chaos, especially after having experienced said chaos firsthand. The name Surrogate Eyes has two defining meanings: that I am translating my experience of this show’s excitement to show others through my interpretation, and that I have, as a fellow artist (in a different medium), become another “Eyes” member. I found the same reckless abandon with this canvas that bands do with their instruments. This piece became largely performative; the canvas my guitar, the studio my stage.

 My visual noise dismembers what may be expected from an oil painting, the way that the metalcore subgenre turns conceptions of music on their heads. This work visually re-imagines and illustrates how an audience member at a metalcore show gets physically (and more often than not, violently) excitable and is meant to show that hearing a band online and seeing a band live are two entirely different things. Its not meant to be beautiful, or accurate. It’s dirty, it’s loud, and it’s live.

Check out A Sight For Sewn Eyes at:
http://www.myspace.com/asightforsewneyes