Interview with Chris Hurt

By Joshua Y'Barbo
Conducted in Dec 2021

The artist discusses his philosophical interests in beauty and time and his multidisciplinary approach that combines design, film and music to make unique works of art. 

In a Moment (2021)

by Chris Hurt, Digital Screen Capture and Photoshop Editing,

Graduate Diploma Graphic Design

Interview: 

Joshua Y'Barbo (JY): Can you tell me about your practice? What do you create work about? How do you make work? What do you think about when you produce work? Are you still doing work now? 

Chris Hurt (CH): My primary practice is design, but it is multidisciplinary. I have always been interested in graphic design, but at the same time, I am a more avid follower of more traditional forms of art: painting, sculpture, film, etc. I took that passion and thought about ways to express ideas because I'm very much into philosophy (that's what I did my undergrad in), which I've been interested in since quite a young age. So, I effectively found ways to try and express ideas, such as this work on beauty, which is an overarching theme for me. I also used film archive footage that describes some mood or feeling about life that certain things reveal. For example, one of my pieces shows a trajectory of someone's typical life, from being a child to growing old. Those sorts of things have been quite impactful because they speak of meaning and purpose, which I relate to. I combine that with music, which is a big passion for me. So, I can use imagery and audio to express some ideas. 

JY: So, could you tell me more about what beauty means to you? 

CH: Beauty is a big topic for me. When I did my undergrad, I wrote my dissertation on beauty, which was very much born of Plato and focused on the idea of beauty itself, its form. I finished the works (in the exhibition) on a website, where I wrote, 'Beauty is beauty, form is form, appearance might change, but the moment remains the same'. That's as purely as I can say what I had come to understand of Plato's understanding of beauty came to be and later philosophers, Immanuel Kant and Roger Scruton. So, I tried to take that and visually express that message (of this work and my practice). That's been the aim to instil a reflective moment in people. Whatever thoughts come to them in that reflective moment are their own. That's not something I'm trying to dictate. 

JY: You spent all of your third year at Chelsea College of Arts studying under the conditions of COVID. How did that impact your experience and the work you created? What was it like for you before and after the lockdowns? 

CH: Studying before was obviously very free. From a social perspective, you could be a student doing whatever you wanted to do. In terms of work, the pandemic was initially a downer and certainly demotivating at the start. However, I found when I accepted what was happening and used the time that I had, I was more productive because I was more aware of my time. Yeah, I don't know how else to describe it. The pandemic made me more mindful of the time that I had. Not in terms of asking myself, 'will I be here tomorrow?' More in the sense that things can happen in life that causes you to lose time, which pushed me to do more things in the work I created.

JY: Could you tell me more about what you're making now?

CH: I’m working with the same concept and archive footage, but I also use my own footage as primary sources. I'm not really so focused on the pristine quality of the video work. To me, that's part of the experience. You know? I have used my phone to capture footage, and that's good enough: it's small and light, and it helps what I filmed to convey the message that I want to express. The other significant aspect of my work is music, which I am more focused on and more adept at doing. But then the two of them combined are what create the final pieces, I hope. 

JY: You have discussed ideas of beauty, freedom, and time, which are very grand philosophical ideas. So, could you say more about bringing different elements together in your practice and work? 

CH: I'm constantly interested in different things. I find something I'm interested in and will start doing it. And then I'll suddenly find something new that speaks to me, and I want to learn more about that. The next thing I know, I've got five things going, and although you can't be great at everything, you can get into lots of different ideas and other interests simultaneously. I've always drawn connections so that I can keep different interests going. For example, I love the simplicity of design; when you see something that's open, it could be a poster or some typeface that's just so well put together. It's simple, not overbearing, and I love that. At the same time, painting can be very expressive, like abstract expressionists. Those two things seem like opposites, but I try and find ways of getting them involved together in some way. 

JY: When you're excited by something, and you want to be good at it, you soon realise that the more things you get excited about, the less attention and focus you can give to any one thing. Therefore, part of finding your voice as an artist is looking for ways to draw your multiple and contradictory interests together into a single creative pursuit. So, based on your professional and personal experiences, philosophically, in studying philosophy and art, do you have any problem-solving strategies you use for any advice for other artists, designers, cultural practitioners or anybody else? 

CH: Yeah, but it depends on the problem: first, find out the problem, and then look for the right tool because different tools are used to solve various issues. Ask yourself: what are you trying to do? I would start with reading, to be honest. If you're finding yourself as I find myself in motion in time, like some kind of existential crisis or some thoughts, then I start with a book about ancient philosophers because someone must have written something about what you're going through. I begin by looking for what someone else has thought and then build ways to visually express those ideas or find answers. Well, actually, not really a solution but more of a conclusion or some kind of release from the problem. That's what art, design, and music are for me. 

JY: Finally, what are your immediate interests or concerns? What is most urgent to you? 

CH: The things most urgent to me are philosophy, aesthetics, ideas of truth, beauty, and what is good. Those things really speak to me. Because I see them as problems and ideas that people have thought about or will think about in the future and have thought about in the past. I'm always concerned with existential issues that will never disappear for humans because it's just part of life: the mysteries we all can relate to, whoever we might be, regardless of language barriers. No doubt, even on the other side of the world, people share similar existential problems: the mysteries of human purpose. That's why it interests me because it's something everyone can relate to and understand in any day and age.

JY: With your philosophy background, you've made a few references connected to Plato, which strikes interesting because he didn't trust the arts because they had a corrupt nature and inauthentic. Instead, Plat thought that the arts imitated real life, therefore  corrupted the experience life as he considered it to be perceivable and tangible. Plato felt the arts distracted and got in the way of understanding true meaning.  

CH: Yeah, Plato does say that, but these ideas are slightly lost in translation. His term for poetry was somewhat more expansive, extending his point about the idea that we shouldn't look at like an image and think that it is the real thing because poetry is more than the result of creative expression. His idea is that beauty lies in something and that poetry reveals beauty. For example, the statue of David by Michelangelo does not possess the quality of beauty, but it reveals the qualities of beauty. It's like describing the experiences of feeling pleasure when looking at something beautiful instead of focusing on the kind of objective thing that whatever work of art you’re looking at is meant to represent.

Social Media & Links

@chrshurt
https://christophermarkham.wixsite.com/moments