“Imperial Bedbug,” by Elvis Costello.
Elvis Costello will show his artwork at The Wentworth Gallery at The Short Hill Malls and make a personal appearance there, May 3 from 6 to 8 p.m.
This will make the first time his artwork has been shown there. Gallery principal Christian O’Mahony said in a press release: “Elvis Costello is one of our generation’s greatest storytellers. This is obvious from his song writing and book publication. It is now equally apparent from his visual artwork.
“His art is sometimes playful, sometimes solemn, but always thought provoking and entertaining. Wentworth Gallery is honored to host Elvis’s inaugural art tour.”
For more on the gallery, visit wentworthgallery.com.
Here is Costello’s official “Artist Statement” regarding his artwork:
The more personal nature of this work is undeniable. It was begun while sitting vigil in my mother’s critical stroke-recovery ward in 2018; I was unable to listen to music for fear of missing her attempts to communicate and unwilling to risk disturbing other patients in the ward.
Creating art gave me the solace of contemplation and playful imagining, allowing me to entertain numerous subjects and dreams; memories of childhood both joyful and untroubled — “The Upside Down Boy” — or in recalling the monsters from a nightmare — “The Green Assassin” — There were also glimpses of the dancehall in which I had seen my father sing and in which I would also perform and along a visual record of my travels and romantic misadventures.
These images — which I might call “cartoons” or even “daubs” are intended to amuse, whether they are playful or macabre. Their subjects often depart from the titles or lyrical lines in my own songs.
A trio of “Red Shoes” arranged as a dance are self-explanatory but the title of another song from my first album “My Aim Is True” sees the doorway to a “Palais De Danse” barred by an imposing doorman. Needless to say the title of that illustration is: “No Dancing”.
There are also several subversions of my own album covers, especially those of the second record release, “This Year’s Model”, which is re-fashioned here as “Flash”, “Smile” and “Blonde” which leads in turn to me imagining “Blonde Elvis”, that is the better known Elvis.
Among my favorite images are those that make visual quotations from the cover painting of the album, “Imperial Bedroom” — the last major work by artist Barney Bubbles — whose graphic art graces numerous album covers from the 1970s to the early 1980s. I am indebted to Barney not only for the art direction and visual layout of my early album covers but to have observed him at work was an education in itself.
The “Little Martinet” character and other motifs from “Imperial Bedroom” are transposed into a number of amended album jackets and parodies of magazine covers, movie posters and pulp novels — such provocations continue to find their way into my lyrics just as they did when I first came to the United States in 1977.
In a manner of speaking, these images are closing a circle.
Most notable among these is “Who Is Eamon Singer?”, in which an actor, posed in the role of an affected modern artist, is replaced by the face of the “Martinet” character, which I always suspected was satirizing my irascible temperament in those early days.
“Eamon Singer” is the “non de plume” that I adopted for two paintings in oils that were completed in 1984 — “Pat & Mike”, seen on the inner sleeve of “Goodbye Cruel World” — and “Napoleon Dynamite” (1986) — an alias which I invented and adopted for the album “Blood & Chocolate” of which my painting was the cover and eighteen years before my alias was appropriated without permission or acknowledgement for a motion picture of the same name.
ELVIS COSTELLO
I am perhaps more than practiced than most in adopting and discarding aliases. While as my family still call me “Declan”, for nearly fifty years, I have been known by the vaguely absurd stage name of “Elvis Costello” — less a crown than a challenge but there is also the part of me that is “Eamon Singer”, the man who I sometimes claim is responsible and who I blame for these visual images.
He has been lurking in the background in the presentation of my musical work since 1984 and I suppose became more visible in the summer of 2024, when I painted six canvases in oil and acrylics, two of which will be seen here for the first time.
Green is often associated with jealousy but you may note that most of the women in these illustrations have green eyes. This is because I believe green to also be the colour of mischief, intrigue and fascination. I have enjoyed the process of selecting images that can stand alone or be viewed in a narrative and trust you to find something to divert, amuse or engage you on the Wentworth Gallery walls.
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