As I entered The Arts Club and proceeded downstairs to the basement of the British institution thinking about Monet, Dickens, Blake and the Solebound gig I had to attend in the evening; I wondered whether the artist I was about to interview who ‘sees colours’ when he hears music, suffers from Synaesthesia or has some sort of divine artistic epiphany incited by music? Either way, experiencing music being painted live is rather remarkable. Having seen Kilford paint live a few months earlier at his monthly residency ‘One Love’, I was intrigued by the entire concept. Static canvas coloured by kinetic, the interactive audio visual experience of hearing music performed live and seeing each bar of it instantly translated onto a blank canvas was exhilarating. Witnessing art in motion with the colourful visual documentation of music, is brilliantly different to the art one is used to seeing and no wonder the Music Painter has the art world’s attention.

Chiselled looks matched by sharp wit, the charming artist is considered to be the rock star of the art world. What is striking is that Kilford is a unique combination of arrogance and humility, flamboyance coupled with sincerity. Think Jim Morrison meets Gandhi and one can get the gist. The statuesque Music Painter exceptionally amalgamates art, music and philanthropy. Is this a utopian fallacy? Absolutely not.

The artist is the first to paint at Knebworth, has painted live alongside some of the world’s most iconic musicians and could easily be resting on lucrative laurels but chooses not to do so. Instead, recognising elitism in art is passé; Kilford strives for inclusiveness, making art accessible for all. Though his paintings fetch for considerable sums, the artist allows fans to download his paintings from his website for free- hundreds of them. Proceeds from the 'One Love' shows go to charity, the artist is always a supportive click away from his Facebook fans, he finds the time to go on Habbo to mentor kids suffering from bullying and still devotes time to painting with terminally ill children. Kilford is charismatic, compassionate, affable and undeniably has a heart of solid gold.

I decided to probe the mind of the Music Painter...

MOBO: Tell us about your childhood and your foray into art…

Kilford: I had a very, very happy childhood. My parents are still together thirty-seven years on. They weren’t creative by any means; my sister was always listening to music, playing the piano and violin. I kind of got into art when I was really young. I started drawing cartoons and I remember actually going up in the classroom at school and saying to them, can I just put some up and they did! I think that was possibly my first sign of exhibitionism and then I moved on to some drawings and stuff. I never really strayed that far from cartoons. I did work experience with a newspaper cartoonist. I applied to Disney, got rejected. I still actually have the rejection letter. I then did A Levels, studied P.E. and Art. I went on to University and studied Business Information Systems then an MBA that I didn’t complete. I was in a bar one day watching a band and I literally saw colours jumping around all over the place.

MOBO: Do you suffer from a disorder?

Kilford: Not that I'm aware of. So then, the next day, I went shopping and bought everything to do with art. I spent six months painting pictures of different songs and I spoke to Milton Keynes Art Gallery who told me to fuck off. Basically they were like you’re not famous enough. Which on reflection is a really good point but at the time, I was rather angry. I went to Dubai, was inspired by the Burj Al Arab Hotel which then led me to book it, have a catwalk built in the ballroom on the top floor and got a load of models to carry my paintings down the runway.

MOBO: You have brought music, fashion and art together. From the aforementioned Burj Al Arab show to conceptualising South African charity event ‘Positive’ with fashion designer Gavin Rajah, what inspired you to start the ‘One Love Project’?

Kilford: Gavin and I sat at Elton John’s ball in Cape Town and later we set up Positive and a year later we had the whole of Sun City. We had Seal come over, Versace, Valentino and Cavalli. A hundred and ten artists all donated their work and it was hard co-ordinating but during that time, I did some music workshops with kids in the hospice who were the beneficiaries and these kids had full blown AIDS, with no chance of survival. So when I painted with them, it was almost as if the virus had left them. They were so happy, jumping around dancing and we got some of the big South African artists to come and play some music and I got them to come and dance and so all the kids painted at the same time and it was just insane. It really was and you know what? There was this one kid, who was a twin and he did this painting and it was Rothko right down to the‘t’-three colours, a big rectangle, then a rectangle at the top and a rectangle at the bottom. The kid had never experienced Rothko before. So I just picked up this view that art is pretty much for everyone really and that was one of my slogans. I like big slogans on things so we had this slogan, ‘Don’t discriminate, create’ for Positive. It was my slogan for creating stuff because Positive was about not discriminating against people with AIDS. So I was dancing around with these kids at the hospice and painting pictures of them and we had a great time and they loved it. The whole thing was very inspiring. It was set up by Bishop Kevin Dowling.
So yes, I set up Positive, it was very successful. I’m no longer involved with it. I was painting music before Positive; I had painted with The Feeling. The week before the first Positive, I painted the Black Eyed Peas.

So back in London, I put my art on Facebook, it’s an interactive window that people can just stand at and look at my art. I think it’s revolutionised human beings. We act differently because of Facebook. We do things differently. I take pictures of things that I think fans on Facebook may like. I do things because of them. I did One Love because of them. I’m not with a gallery, I haven’t got a dealer, all that kind of stuff. Totally independent so how do you show your paintings when you’re independent without getting a gallery? My paintings don’t sit well in a white wall gallery, well they’ve never actually sat on a white wall gallery but I just don’t feel that the viewer would experience the whole story about the painting by seeing it in that context. So I thought I’d go out to all these musicians; let’s create somewhere where great musicians can come and have their musical portraits done and we’ve had some absolutely amazing musicians. Like King Charles, they are fucking great. Swami are fucking great, Rachael Sage is fucking great, Woodentops were fucking great, John and Jhen were fucking great. Angry Dan- fucking great! One Love is streamed live because of my fans. Every time the month would come up and I’d say check these out guys, I got these people playing, everyone in America or other parts of the world would say that they’d want to be there aswell. So I decided to live stream the installation widening accessibility.

MOBO: The profits from ‘One Love’ go to the Sam Buxton Healing Trust. Could you tell us more about the charity?

Kilford: They do complementary healing for cancer patients at UCLH. Angie Buxton King is the first healer in the NHS and her son died from Leukaemia when he was twelve or fourteen or so and basically she wasn’t happy with the standard of life that people have with standard medication for this stuff so she investigated all these different alternative complementary therapies and became an expert in all of them. She used them on her son and his standard of life went up hugely. He passed away but she carried on with the hospital and now there are fourteen healers in the NHS and this all started from Angie. So I did painting workshops for the kids there with cancer. We spend so much of our time worrying about sparkly Gucci shoes and then you see these kids and things get put into perspective. Some of the parents come to the workshops too and what’s in the parents’ perspective, and I didn’t really recognise this at the time is that, the painting at that particular moment is actually going to sadly live longer than some of the kids. That’s the power of art. I do find there’s something special about the naivety and the inner mind of a kid. That’s why when some people that don’t particularly like my work say it’s like that of a child’s, it’s the biggest fucking compliment anyone can ever give me because it means that something is unconditioned and free.

MOBO: You clearly see a synergy between music and visual art. What specifically about music dictates your live art? Is it the tempo, the intensity of the bass and treble; or collectively the genre of the music as a whole?

Kilford: Everything. All of it in one go including the performance aspect aswell because there’s a certain vibe about painting live that’s very different to me painting in the studio. It’s much more intense and also there’s the timing aspect aswell because at a live gig, I’ll paint the moment the band starts from the first note, to the last note. Generally, I don’t remember a great deal from that experience.

MOBO: You have painted at a number of stellar venues including Ronnie Scott’s, The Royal Albert Hall, Brixton Academy, Greenpeace ship 'Arctic Sunrise' and you recently became the first painter to paint live at Knebworth when you painted Iggy & The Stooges, Pendulum and Skunk Anansie at the Sonisphere Festival. How important is the performance venue to you? Do your physical surroundings affect your art?

Kilford: I’d paint here now, if the music was cool. I think the venues for me don’t really play a part in it but I would definitely, definitely be lying if I said that you know Knebworth wasn’t that important. Of course it was but that’s secondary to the music. I mean for me, I’ve always since the minute I started painting, was always worried that I’m going to die before I ever manage to paint my Magnus painting. Seriously, that I don’t get to paint the one painting that is the definitive painting. So I’ve carried that for a long time. I walked off stage at Knebworth after painting with Iggy and I honestly felt that anything else that happens in my life, is purely a bonus.

MOBO: You have painted live alongside a plethora of musicians including Paul Weller, The Black Eyed Peas, Baaba Maal, Buena Vista Social Club, Swami, The Feeling, Feeder, Deep Purple, Robert Plant, The Charlatans and The Magic Numbers. Which has been the most challenging?

Kilford: I would say Black Eyed Peas because for me that’s one of my most important paintings for a number of reasons. It’s the first time that I really allowed a total connection to the painting. What I mean by that is, some of the painting before I actually would question if people would like it. If you paint a picture baby, you want people to like it right?

MOBO: Did you seek acceptance?

Kilford: Yeah of course I did at the time and we all seek acceptance. Everyone seeks acceptance for whatever it is they do. So I remember thinking to myself, I hope the band likes it. I’d painted The Feeling before and I was like not continuously, there’d be moments of connection but then there would be an, “oh fuck, what if that colour doesn’t go, it should be orange but it doesn’t go with that fucking blue.” So I’ve like consciously had to be conscious in there and that’s not good. I don’t want any conscious. The Peas painting is where I let it out. I was unleashed.

MOBO: Have you ever experienced an artist’s block onstage?

Kilford: No. Although there are times where I change gloves and then try and get back in again. It’s almost like a meditative state, in fact it is a meditative state to get in the right place and you know, I don’t think you can think about it. You’ve just got to roll with it.

MOBO: Who would be your dream musician to paint?

Kilford: See this is a little bit of a problem. I was brought up on Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and I really only found my way myself with Oasis. Now, the Evening Standard asked me what’s my dream gig? I have to say automatically, Oasis at Wembley because that’s what my upbringing was. I’m a massive fucking Oasis fan. Now, other people say you can’t just say Oasis but I fucking love Oasis; but I’d also love to do some really cool live stuff with… Jesus the list is massive. With Richard Ashcroft, Ronson would be great, I like his new stuff. N-Dubz, it’s a really good question but I get confused with it because instantly I have to flag musicians but it kind of links in with what I’m doing with One Love. I’m taking One Love to bigger places, bigger venues.

MOBO: Who are your artistic influences?

Kilford: Da Vinci when I was younger. Now I primarily take my inspiration from music. Other artists that really turn me on, not inspire me are Pollock at number four; Spencer Tunick, Hirst and Anish Kapoor. Anish Kapoor is my number one purely because his work is just so fucking spectacularly simplistically beautiful, it’s annoying!

MOBO: You are currently developing an art project that will help to inspire young people to be creative. Could you elaborate?

Kilford: I have a studio in Habbo, a virtual world for young people. Now within there, you have different concept rooms. I’ve worked with Habbo this year. We ran a competition to get young people who are involved in art. They had to create a painting about one of their favourite songs. So, we had five hundred kids apply and paint a picture in to weeks, massive, massive. Parallel to this, there was another competition where they created my online studio; so the winner of that got a special gold badge and I sent them out a lot of paint stuff et cetera. I have this massive great big deluxe virtual studio now. I go there usually every Saturday afternoon and chat to these kids. Now, some of these kids talked to me about being bullied and said they couldn’t talk to anyone at school or their teacher or their parents. So I thought hang on a minute, this is a bit wrong. Have you not checked out this website or Childline and they’d say they didn’t want to make a phone call and so could I help? So I thought, hell yes I can! Send info to the studio and we’ll be on the case. So, I’ve since spoken to Habbo and we are right at the very beginning of setting up an international anti-bullying campaign. It was inspired by one of the girls who was being bullied and her supply teacher said that she should go and paint on a wall in the toilet to allow her anger to come out. I was like what the fuck? I said what I want to do is to take that concept and to get everyone to do this. Not just the person that is bullied but everyone in the school to go and write stuff, almost like graffiti. Just create something on the toilet wall which is like the anti-bullying wall.

MOBO: What role does technology currently play in the Arts and what do you envisage for the future?

Kilford: I think a lot of people think technology is a bad thing with music and art and all that kind of stuff but I think that it is a Godsend! I think it allows people to be more creative, it allows us to connect much more easily with the Arts. Anyone who thinks it’s not will be stuck in the Dark Ages and will be soon forgotten. I mean it’s great to have your ‘Smoke on the Water’ LP, I still have that though I don’t have anything to play it on but with technology, we are evolving.

MOBO: What does the future hold for Kilford?

Kilford: What I am very excited about is One Love and expanding the installations to make them even more accessible. I’m really looking forward to painting Akala live at One Love #8 not just because of the music, although ‘XXL’ has been meandering around my brain since the moment I first heard it but like me, he focuses on mixing the Arts up and making it more inspiring and accessible to young people. That’s important shit man, its inspiring. I’m looking forward to the anti-bullying campaign and working with kids globally. I’m also looking at a global festival tour in the future, which will probably wear my fingers down to the bone!

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi’s words are as poignant now as they were seventy years ago and Kilford’s conviction in striving for the aforementioned is highly commendable. Aspiring to implement positive change is at best admirable but physically implementing the means to achieve this, is exemplary.

Truth prevailing, Kilford is an artist, a musician, a humanitarian; and still an enigma.

Kilford will be painting MOBO 2010 nominee Akala at One Love #8 at The Social, London on 18th October 2010.

For more details please visit:

www.themusicpainter.com/facebook

Photos by Guy Levy

Reema Kumari Jadeja ©