Banks Violette

Art + Black Metal = Banks Violette

There are few media more abstract and controversially confusing than modern art, and we went right to the source in search of the most engaging pieces of perfomance art. And when it comes to that, there are probably very few artists that substantiate the dark abstractions of the human condition as well as Banks Violette.

New York City-based visual artist and Columbia graduate is probably one of the most explicitly music-inspired modern art figures the moment. Directly influenced by extreme Black Metal culture, Banks Violette’s work exposes the darkest corners of the human psyche in some quite unorthodox ways.

"Banks Violette provides a snapshot of the human psyche in situ"

One of his most emblematic pieces is a collaboration with Seattle’s Sunn O))), that involved the dark ambient band playing in a basement of the Walker Arts Center, while the exhibition was taking place on the floor above.

The resulting performance is almost tactile - the viewer would feel, rather than hear the bass-heavy, incremental performance. The installation’s centrepiece is a monochromatic rock salt cast of the band’s stage set and acts as the visual counterpart to the Sunn O)))’s textural wall of sound. Surely a removed and disconcerting experience, but also a perceptually rich amalgamation of sculpture, ambience and pure physical presence?

Whilst visiting last year at the Maureen Paley exhibition space in East London, Banks Violette recast the iconic Columbia TriStar animated horse as a recurring gothic nightmare, projected on a vapour screen. A reimagined Henry Fuseli delivered in spastic, bite-sized portions.

Both of these works present a brave and often brutal enquiry into the most intimate aspects of the human psyche and expose the work of an unsettling but truly ambitious genius.