Previous AA2A Artist

Tony Knox

Year:
2013-14
Location:
wigan / Liverpool
Project summary:
About me and my involvement in AA2A: I am a multidisciplinary artist interested in the illusionary nature behind heroic expression and the undervalued professional. My work questions assumptions made about the role of the artist and the futility of living out boy hood dreams. Even my most characteristically humored works refuse to disguise such artistic sincerity. ¨This is evident in my on-going exchange with the British wrestling community who I has documented and be actively involved in over the past 13 years. Helping to raise both the profile of the sport as a profession and feed my artistic process, through the medium of film and photography. I treat this output as raw material, to be transformed according to the context it is situated in, without hierarchy, whether to shed new light on my heroes in the wrestling industry or for the art institute.
My artwork is functional in the real world, I use this privileged position to bridge boundaries between the two, most notably in my energetic performances, which bring the sub-culture of the wrestling ring into the gallery environment. 
This has manifested itself in the legendary wrestling character ‘Mothman’, an ongoing stage persona I uses to explore themes such as the role of the superhero artist, adulthood and failure.
An artist in the guise of a wrestler living out the fantasies of a childhood dream, ‘Mothman’ has performed and exhibited globally in different settings and communities. I collaborated on the Mothman comic book that is released every 2 years as part of the Liverpool Independent Biennial and am currently working on Mothman issue 4 to conclude a decade of Moth man. I also worked with a Patachitra, or scroll story artists while on a cultural exchange residency in West Bengal, India.
About me and my involvement in AA2A: I am a multidisciplinary artist interested in the illusionary nature behind heroic expression and the undervalued professional. My work questions assumptions made about the role of the artist and the futility of living out boy hood dreams. Even my most characteristically humored works refuse to disguise such artistic sincerity. ¨This is evident in my on-going exchange with the British wrestling community who I has documented and be actively involved in over the past 13 years. Helping to raise both the profile of the sport as a profession and feed my artistic process, through the medium of film and photography. I treat this output as raw material, to be transformed according to the context it is situated in, without hierarchy, whether to shed new light on my heroes in the wrestling industry or for the art institute.
My artwork is functional in the real world, I use this privileged position to bridge boundaries between the two, most notably in my energetic performances, which bring the sub-culture of the wrestling ring into the gallery environment. 
This has manifested itself in the legendary wrestling character ‘Mothman’, an ongoing stage persona I uses to explore themes such as the role of the superhero artist, adulthood and failure.
An artist in the guise of a wrestler living out the fantasies of a childhood dream, ‘Mothman’ has performed and exhibited globally in different settings and communities. I collaborated on the Mothman comic book that is released every 2 years as part of the Liverpool Independent Biennial and am currently working on Mothman issue 4 to conclude a decade of Moth man. I also worked with a Patachitra, or scroll story artists while on a cultural exchange residency in West Bengal, India.

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