Meet Colin Radcliffe

This blog loves the heck out of music (obviously), but we also have a big appreciation for all the creatives hustling in this big beautiful mess of a city. 

Thus, it’s time for a bit more color. A bit more clay. A bit of romance. 

Enter Colin Radcliffe, a Brooklyn-based visual artist tackling themes of queer love, chronic disease, and technology/digital space. His mixed media explosions of color and personal experiences are guaranteed to stop you in your tracks. 

Below, we chat about breathing beds, his creative process, and of course, get some guilty pleasure song recs. 

Check out his words below, and peep his website and Instagram ASAP.

A Self-Portrait by Colin Radcliffe

Would You Rather…

Would you rather your bed breathe heavily, or narrate everything you are doing?

My bed narrating everything I'm doing might make the mundane things I do seem more important, but ultimately would be really distracting or even too confessional if I'm trying to do something private or intimate. Heavy breathing might become like white noise overtime, so maybe it would be nice to fall asleep to that. It'd also be as if I was falling asleep with someone else every night, which is a sweet thought, so I'll go with a heavily breathing bed.

Some Questions with Colin Radcliffe

How would you describe your art?

Tender, humorous, queer, playful yet mature, sexually charged, romantic, and vibrantly colorful like confetti.

How does your creative process start?

My process is very intimate and directly rooted in my personal experiences of love, romance, and sex. Every figure is in some way about a partner I've had, a self portrait, or some combination of the two and is ultimately confessional, emotional, and cathartic. The ceramic cell phones are similar but more focused on my relationship to technology as a catalyst in forming queer relationships. So the process starts from my own lived experiences, then to how I've processed or dealt with those experiences and feelings, and then on to the physical making of a piece. It's really important to me that I hand build all of my ceramic works so that I can imprint some sort of memory or feeling directly into them through touch, using the the same hands that caressed a lover or sent an intimate text message.

If you could give one animal species (besides people) the ability to fly which would it be. Why?

My first instinct was snakes, so that they wouldn't need a plane. I imagine that would be totally horrifying to most people, so maybe it'd be better if penguins could fly so they wouldn't be left out among all of other the birds that can fly.

What is a word that does not get used enough?

Lovely, in a non-ironic way.

Who is the one artist, in any period, you would want to collaborate with?

Tracey Emin. It's hard to say what sort of work would come from a collaboration but I'd be really excited to work with her. We both make autobiographical work focused on our successes and failures in our relationships, tinged with a mix of both humor and tragedy. So I imagine a collaboration between us would result in something emotionally raw yet humorous.

What are some visual artists that you think don’t get enough recognition?

Oh so many! The first few that game to mind are Jake Grewal, Lisa Levy, and Jody Paulsen.

Jake is based in London and makes these gorgeous earthy and jewel-toned drawings and paintings of queer figures in nature, and actively shows in the UK. A lot of the work has this luminous dream-like quality to it with romantic undertones because of how beautifully he handles light and color. And many of the works feature either a lone nude figure or a couple engrossed in a lush landscape. 

Lisa is based in Brooklyn and makes clever conceptual work usually focused on existential anxieties and thoughts. Her most recent solo at Art During the Occupation Gallery titled "Get My Stuff When I'm Dead" was a survey of her work and most personal possessions throughout the entirety of her life. Visitors could pick one item in the show and provide a reason as to why they should receive the item when the artist passes away. Lisa then went through the submissions and selected the most compelling, and included those people in her will. It was a really evocative and tender body of work, and a touching insight into another persons collection of their most precious lifes' works and possessions.

Jody is good friend of mine from Cape Town who makes these unbelievably massive, colorful, hyper patterned felt collages. Every single piece of felt is hand cut and assembled into objects and patterns that make up a single large image, sometimes a portrait or a still life. Some of the pieces even feature hand-cut felt text that references queerness, identity, pop culture, and consumerism. I was lucky enough to curate a work of his into a show in Brooklyn a couple years ago, and I've been luck to see his work a couple times since then in the US. Jodys' work is beyond awe-striking in person and I urge anyone who gets the chance to go see!

What drew you to pursue ceramics, having previously been a painter?

Ceramics require a kiln and a lot of power so it's not something you can find or do just anywhere, whereas painting could really be done anywhere. I feel very thankful and very privileged for the opportunity and space to be able to expand my work into ceramics, and it's now primarily the medium I work in. I had the freedom to explore ceramics my last year at Bard, and luckily found an affordable ceramic studio to work out of post-graduating in 2016. Aside from that it was a very natural progression—paint and clay have a tactility to them that makes working in both mediums feel like cousins. I've been able to communicate my ideas and feelings through ceramics much more effectively than through painting, and I've been even more drawn to ceramics because it's a sort of language that I can understand and communicate in.

The physicality of ceramics also yields itself well to the work I'm making now; fluently translating to exaggerated bodily forms and expressions. Ceramics also endure a literal trial by fire, much like love and relationships do, and the end result is ultimately always unexpected. I find that relationship to be really exciting, which is just another reason for me to love ceramics.

As much of your work is autobiographical, do you find the process of making and sharing it in any way cathartic?

Making the work is very cathartic. Ceramics have a long history of functional vessels for storing or containing things, and while my ceramics are instead sculptural objects they still act like vessels for me. I pour my feelings and impress my memories into each piece, so in that way they become these emotional repositories that leave me freer and more able to heal, grow, and love again.

Sharing them is less cathartic for me than the making of them, but after completing a piece it becomes a way for me to talk about events, people, or feelings that would otherwise be too difficult for me to talk about prior to making the work. In other words my ceramics make physical my unspoken sentiments, rendering my private feelings public, and then having a concrete physical embodiment of an intimate thing makes talking about it much easier for me.

What are some guilty pleasure songs you’re listening to currently?

Juicy - Doja Cat
New Song - Alive Phoebe Lou
Oui ou Non - Angèle 
idontwannabeyouanymore - Billie Eilish
Twilight - Denai Moore
Il y a - Alice et Moi

If you couldn’t call yourself an "artist," what would you choose and why?

I honestly wouldn't feel fulfilled or satiated if I wasn't creating work, it's really all I want to do all the time. So imagining myself as anything but an artist feels impossible and antithetical to who am I, but if art didn't exist I'm sure I would still be driven to some sort of creative work. I actually played around with the idea of becoming an art therapist at one point, but I've always loved gardening and farming, and have worked on an apothecary and herb farm for a few years so maybe I'd be a gardener or an herbalist. Spending time in nature is precious and healing and has always been important to me. Helping a plant grow from a tiny seed into something so vibrant and alive has always captivated me. I also love giving flowers to people, it's something I wish more people did, so if I wasn't an artist I'd most likely be working with plants in some creative way like designing gardens, making plant medicine, or creating floral arrangements.

In what ways has working in Brooklyn and the surrounding arts community helped or hindered your process and work?

Living and working in Brooklyn has provided me with so many opportunities, many of them unexpected. There is a really supportive community of artists, curators, and gallerists here in Brooklyn and I've been so fortunate to be entrenched in such a vibrant and loving community. To be completely honest I had actually resisted moving to NYC out of a fear that it would be too competitive, elitist, and expensive for young artists and therefore too much of a struggle to create work, survive, and be successful. After living in Brooklyn for the past three years I would say that while it definitely is expensive, the community of artists here is strong and supportive and everyone I've met wants to push the work of their friends and support artists however they can.

For me what I've found to be most helpful about working in Brooklyn has been the sheer amount of opportunities for artists in the NYC area, through friends finding affordable studio space and a place to live, and having really wonderful friendships with other artists where we can support one another in our careers.

Pie or cake? Why?

That's tough...on most days I prefer cake over pie but if I had to pick only one to eat forever than I'd choose pie. Pie is more versatile than cake, since it can be filled with either savory or sweet ingredients.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

I'm giving an artist talk at Bard College on March 10th, so if anyone would like to come hear me talk more about my work that's a great opportunity! Or feel free to get in touch if you'd like to come by sometime for a studio visit!