Someone Living’. Preserved in formaldehyde this 14-foot tiger shark is 23 tons of heavyweight dead weight. Whatever way you want to look at it, [this] art is a gift from god. The Lord, or whatever Deity you believe in - or not, foretells of death and rebirth thereafter restoring body and spirit for all eternity. McAlpine Miller believes, “John Lennon, the greatest of talents, will without doubt 'live forever'. Music needs to touch the soul and bleed the heart. His did. Equally, as John Lennon and in his relationship inspired by Yoko Ono.” Fellow Beatles band member, the spiritual George Harrison, hands it up to ‘My Sweet Lord’, praising the great Hindu god Krishna under a halo symbolising his saintly side. As McAlpine Miller has “Elvis Presley [very
appropriately] under the spotlight. Hailed as The King of Rock and Roll, the eternal light shines on Elvis”. Some are members of the ‘27 Club’ (popular musicians who died aged 27) including Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison and a smokin’ Jimi Hendrix through Purple Haze “’scuse me while I kiss the sky”. Alas, they all kiss the sky now from a world of highly addictive amphetamines, prescription drugs and hard alcohol that lead to [their] untimely early deaths. “Significant of our hopes and dreams only to find that not all come to fruition,” says McAlpine Miller, “more relatable than ever. And instantly wowing.”
The idea that if I could achieve a fraction of the brilliance of these musicians through my own art really inspired me.” Painting the singers and creatives McAlpine Miller has a special connection to, he “explores the notion of the icon’s ‘split personalities’; the performer and the person, or in some cases multiple personalities, characters or personas. Many musicians and performers have talked openly about the different people or characters they become on stage when playing to audience, the person off stage but in ‘the band’ and the person they are when at home or on holiday. Finding it difficult to switch between the many ‘me’s’ or to find balance.” Meet David Bowie’s rebellious alter-egos achieving fame with more make-up more fashion and more glamour-puss than wuss. From drag-rocker to operatic genius. McAlpine Miller calls it, “‘Code Switching’. Like switching between languages in conversations; adapting dialects, accents and/or mannerisms based on your audience. Now more than ever we seem to wear different ‘hats’ when we are with different groups; work, social, friends, family, all having a slightly different version of ‘you’ for all of them.”
We see Ziggy Stardust rise and fall in high-heels just as Amy Winehouse “died a hundred times” back to black the colour of mourning. Whilst in the background, McAlpine Miller’s signature cartoons - some infinitesimally small as an abstract shaped kaleidoscopic pattern - meet Wonder Woman and Super Girl looking drawn like a tarot card outline of a goat’s skull, the Devil’s sacrificial symbol of death. So Winehouse is Millais’s Pre-Raphaelite ‘Ophelia’, offered as a saint and martyr, but sexier. Without doubt, as religious Renaissance portraits served up donor’s mortality, the Dutch Golden Age ‘memento mori’ cries ‘you’ll die’ and Mae West says, “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!”. So it’s faith holding George Michael, Freddie Mercury and Jim Morrison together to model Christ’s white loin cloth. Staging the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, the central symbol of Christianity, doesn’t make for a Christian painting, no. But as we each have our cross to bear, each picture puffs a Rite of Passage towards the afterlife.
A Trip Beyond Imagination Deckle-edged Giclée On Paper | Edition of 95 Image Size 102cm x 74cm | Framed Size 132cm x 104cm £995 Framed
Death is a part of life. Like Hirst’s miraculous ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of
96 FINE ART COLLECTOR AUTUMN/WINTER 2020
FINE ART COLLECTOR AUTUMN/WINTER 2020 97
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