Tan Gillies on transforming his darkest suburban memories into healing art

Leading up to his latest exhibition, artist Tan Gillies moved back to his childhood home and spent three solitary months alone in his former bedroom – a site of trauma where, many years ago, he’d witnessed the domestic violence that would come to inform so much of his work. There, he immersed himself into a monastic routine of sleeping, eating, and painting while confronting the layers of meaning and deconstructing the shadowy density of painful recollections the house held for him. “It was good to just make a mess and also be alone in that house that I haven’t really lived in for nearly 20 years, and just try and process some of the memories that I’ve spent most of my life trying to escape,” he told Dazed. “It helped me make some peace with myself and I’m very grateful for that.”

Nights of Violence at London’s Soho Revue distils Gillies’ experiences of this dark but creative interlude in the hinterland between adult life and childhood memory. Using text, film, photography, painting, and sculpture, he moves between the three psychogeographies of suburbia, inner-city London, and his motherland, Iceland – distinct, formative landscapes which function for Gillies as repositories of cumulative memory and experience. 

These visceral artworks by one of the most exciting emerging artists working in London today challenge us to grapple with questions about violence, addiction, life, death, and grief, while alluding to the possibility of safety, acceptance, and peace that could exist on the other side of trauma. Above, take a look through some installation shots from Nights of Violence. Below, we talk with Tan Gillies about the experience of returning to his childhood home, making sense of grief, and the subversive and brutal undercurrent of life in the suburbs.

For anyone encountering your work for the first time, please could you tell us about Nights of Violence and talk us through the sensory experience of the exhibition? 

Tan Gillies: This is my first solo show and I guess it’s just a part of my evolution as a visual artist and communicator. It leads on from my book Cold Bones and the short film Trauma Hurts I released earlier this year. 

For the last 18 months, I’ve dedicated every waking minute to creating stuff that’s been clogged in my head. Some days it’s painting, some days it’s photography, some days it’s… I have no idea, but I know I have to do it in order to stay on an even-keel, mentally.

The title comes from spending the last three months making the final bits of the show completely alone in the house I grew up in as a kid and, yeah, there was some mad shit going on there in those days. But this time it was just really peaceful and I had a lot of time to think and process some of those darker memories and push them into the work in a positive way. 

In terms of sensory experience, it’s kind of immersive and feeling-based. I want people to take whatever they want from it. There is not one linear message being communicated or some political statement, it’s just a visual download of feelings. It’s kind of like a drug experience.

I think people are going to be surprised to see some of the stuff in there, like the sculpture piece. I’ve kept it all really low key so far and not showed any work online or anything except for a couple of older pieces that will be in there.

“The title comes from spending the last three months making the final bits of the show completely alone in the house I grew up in as a kid... I had a lot of time to think and process some of those darker memories and push them into the work in a positive way” – Tan Gillies

What mediums are you working with for this new show? 

Tan Gillies: Mainly painting… using acrylics, gloss house paint on raw unprimed canvas, enamel on glass, and other stuff found in the woods. You can watch my film also and then there are photographs I’ve never shown before, and some stuff on paper. The sculpture is made from a goat skull from Iceland, sitting in a glass coffin full of ketamine. 

What would you say are the recurring themes of your work? And how do they make themselves apparent in this latest exhibition? 

Tan Gillies: I think that whatever I make or have made recently tends to deal with the light and the dark of life, and that can be applied to different things. I’m always trying to process my emotions in one way or another and that can feel good but it can also feel really bad. I don’t want to talk too much about it as I’ve said it a lot before, but I’m a product of domestic violence and generational alcoholism and addiction. I’m affected by that and I always will be so, of course, a lot of that stuff pops up in my work. But, moving on, I’ll move past that and make work about other stuff I’m sure. 

I struggle a lot with the concept of being alive one day and then gone the next, and the purpose of all this shit that’s going on around me. I try and make sense of the stuff I’ve experienced while under the influence of certain substances in the past. My mind has been places my body hasn’t and I believe in something bigger going on. Call it the universe or whatever you like, but I’m always trying to tap further into that. These days, without using drugs. And making these things helps that. I think visually in this body of work you can see and feel the light and the dark, the happiness and the sadness, you know the full spectrum of feelings that we as humans are blessed and cursed with.  

How would you characterise the three distinct psychogeographies of suburbia, inner-city London, and Iceland? 

Tan Gillies: All three of those places make up who I am as a person – I’m a mixture of all that stuff, and that’s what makes me have to make art. 

Suburbia and the London outskirts are the fucking maddest places – well, in my experience, anyway. Most people I’m sure think of middle-class, sleepy, little areas I guess. And that’s true to a certain extent, but I think of serial killers, teenage drinkers in the park, young romance, smoking bongs, doing acid, popping pills, traveller sites, old soiled mattresses, discarded condoms in the woods, pub fights, and some fucking really loony shit going on. Two of the schools I went to – my first school and my secondary – young schoolgirls were kidnapped and murdered by different serial killers from both those schools at different times. That’s fucked. And just a million other strange and peculiar goings-on I experienced as a youth growing up. And that’s not me saying it is a totally negative place, it’s just a very interesting place. 

There’s just a completely different energy to the inner city and, with that, a whole array of characters and inspirations. I soaked a lot of that stuff in growing up and I’m a product of it as well. I spent over half my life living in zones one and two of London. London as a city is just the best, anything you want to experience – good and bad – is right there… the most amazing spectrum of insanity in full sensory glory. My early memories of going to gigs at the Astoria and skating at Southbank at, like, 11 or 12 years old and just being totally blown away, obsessed, and slightly terrified at the chaos of the place. I threw myself in headfirst. 

London’s changed a lot over the years but it’s still one of – if not the greatest – cities in the world. From music, art, fashion, skating, and deeper hedonism it’s just an explosion of creativity, culture, and madness and it’s totally unique. I love it and it inspires everything I make. 

Iceland is everything else to me. It’s my mother’s homeland, where my grandparents are buried, and where I’ve found my peace over the years. It’s a very, very special place to me and, again, has informed who I am as a person and as an artist. It’s full of amazing characters, folklore, and magic and an incredible place to get lost. The landscapes and sky are just mind-blowing all year round for various reasons and it is full of energy and power – literally, as you will have seen recently with the latest volcanic eruption. That country really puts us as humans into perspective compared to the forces of mother nature. It’s impossible not to be totally blown away by that when you are there, it really puts all this social media narcissistic bullshit that has engulfed humanity into perspective, people wasting their life posting 1,000 pictures or videos of their own heavily-filtered face day after day after day instead of trying to stand for something or leave some kind of contribution behind, you know? Some of the work in this show I came up with when I was in Iceland trying to get my shit together last year, and it informs every single piece in one way or another. For example, the three large paintings ‘Until The Light Takes Us’ are, essentially, psychedelic saturated landscapes of cemeteries in Iceland during December. 

“My mind has been places my body hasn’t and I believe in something bigger going on. Call it the universe or whatever you like, but I’m always trying to tap further into that” – Tan Gillies

Please could you describe the process of making the artwork for the show? 

Tan Gillies: Yeah, it’s not been a straightforward journey, I guess. From day to day it changes, my ideas develop, and I think I’m going to make this or that, it’s going to look like this or that, and it just ends up being something totally different. But I like that. 

I had two studios in Acton in West London for a year and made some of the initial stuff whilst in those with a rough idea to do a show at some point. And, like I said, most of the stuff from that first 12 months never even saw the light of day. I ended up taking random things that I liked and that made sense to me and putting those in the show. Then, for the last three months prior to its opening I intentionally moved out of my flat and studio and moved into the back room of my childhood home. I set up a studio there.

My mum is very cool and encouraged me to let loose and do with it as I wanted, and so I just slept, ate, and painted in there for three months completely alone. 

I’d never stretched canvases before so I taught myself how to do that and just fully immersed myself in it. It took a lot of mistakes and a lot of experimentation to get to a place where I had the works that I’ve brought into the show from that period. 

I was using all kinds of different methods there and it was good to just make a mess and also be alone in that house that I haven’t really lived in for nearly 20 years, and just try and process some of the memories that I’ve spent most of my life trying to escape. It helped me make some peace with myself and I’m very grateful for that. In amongst that, I was fucking around with sculptures and stuff, and one of them made it into the show. As you will see, it’s heavily inspired by all the stuff here above. 

“I think visually in this body of work you can see and feel the light and the dark, the happiness and the sadness, you know the full spectrum of feelings that we as humans are blessed and cursed with” – Tan Gillies

Could you tell us about the topic of violence and how your new show explores and comments on this phenomenon? 

Tan Gillies: Violence was a big part of my life, not just ’cause my father was a very violent man when I was a kid but, I guess, also just in my life growing up. Nights out could get very violent – whether at the pub, after school, out skating, beef, or just mates fighting each other. I really don’t condone it or wish to ever have to be a part of it ever again. 

I have very clear and powerful memories of my mum – the person I love most in this world – with her face covered in blood, and her face bashed in. You know, that shit never ever leaves you. So I was born into violence, it made me feel terribly unsafe, and I was heavily affected. That left me needing to attach myself to self-destructive coping mechanisms as I grew into a man myself – whether that be drugs, graffiti, crime, or fighting. So, really, all of that stuff is in this work. It’s me working through a lot of traumatic experiences – some that were totally out of my control and some that I put myself in or even orchestrated. This is how I channel all of that stuff now, it all goes in one direction and that is creating the things that I see in my head, firstly for myself and maybe for other people too. 

What would you most like visitors to take away from Nights of Violence? 

Tan Gillies: People can take whatever they want from it, I didn’t make it for anyone in particular. I make things for myself first and foremost but, of course, if people connect and relate, that’s lovely. 

In general though, I’d like people to stop, think, and talk more, maybe think about the friend who doesn’t seem quite right and is withdrawn and might have problems at home. Are they okay? Do they need help? You know, I just want abusers to be publicly shamed as much as possible. And, more than that, removed from society completely. There is no place in this world for bullies and violent cowards. I don’t stand for it and if you know of abuse going on in a home or relationship and don’t tell anyone then you are complicit.

The knock-on effect of that shit ruins many lives. Don’t be ashamed to talk about things in general… addiction, domestic violence, mental health, whatever. Don’t let this shit eat you alive. In general, talking saves lives and that’s a fact. Be kind to yourself and those around you. Also, I want people to see that you can kind of do anything you like with your life, it’s never too late. I switched my shit up completely and just went the other way and I’m much much happier for it. 

Tan Gillies, Nights of Violence is at London’s Soho Revue gallery until December 23 2021