Alan Kestner

Dancing to the Rhythm of Time

Pencil – 2020.     76 x 56 cm

This is an attempt to illustrate time as in time-lapse photography. A conductor with his hands moving to the beat of his music is repeated right across the composition. Each vignette he passes then breaks up into multiple images to show the passing of time. These, of course, all have their own individual story to tell, from an opera singer (bottom left) to the four horsemen of the apocalypse (top right).

About

I have always been a creative person. In childhood I liked making things in wood. The weekly order of fruit and vegetables came in a wooden orange box. I would use the planks to construct everything my imagination dreamt up, including chairs and tables, swords and cricket bats, tree houses and, most importantly, boats. I was a choral scholar at New College School in Oxford and this instilled in me a lifelong love of music, so that now it is one of the main themes of my painting. I try to evoke the feeling that it instills in me through the use of pattern, shape and colour.

My secondary school did not take art seriously and, as I was good at other subjects, I had to drop art. Instead, I studied sciences and went on to take Physics at university. I studied this for one year, and then changed courses to study Fine Art at the University of Newcasle-upon-Tyne. I developed an interest in French modern primitive painters such as Camille Bombois and René Rimbert and wrote my history of art dissertation on the Douanier Rousseau.

Much of my work involves the bright colours and optimistic outlook of naïf art, but I also go further and unsettle the viewer by including more sinister vignettes in my compositions. Peaceful landscapes abruptly become anarchic – for example, in the “Garden of Mirthly Delights” there are mouths ready to swallow up unwary oarswomen; snails fire incendiaries into a city; and the citizens escape only to find they need to dance to escape the boiling-hot sand. But, above all, I like to pull the rug from under unwary feet and hopefully make people think more deeply about the world around us.

Contact: alankestner@gmail.com

The Queen’s Music

Pencil – 2020.     56 x 76 cm

The Queen gave a speech to the nation during Covid lockdown in May 2020. To visually interpret the music she was playing I created a series of patterns and rhythms superimposed on the trees. Musicians I admire are depicted in the large oak leaves above and include David Oistrakh and Yehudi Menuhin, playing Bach.

Memories Are Made of This 1 – Me Too

Pencil – 2021.     56 x 76 cm

This is the first variation in a triptych on the theme of memory. They all use the same twisting shapes as background, but each superimposes quite different stories on them. The underlying theme here is maladaptive relationships, starting with Harvey Weinstein (bottom left), then moving to squabbling parents (centre) and doctors  arguing over pills or natural herbs (top right).

Tanz Mit Dem Teufel

Pencil – 2021.     29.7 x 42 cm

Like all of us, the naked woman is tempted by the glitter of contemporary life promised by the skeleton. But alongside this, life and work must continue on the table of life. Here two figures perform their daily grind in the hamster wheel, while other members of the family get on with their everyday tasks.

Herringbone Suit

Pencil – 2021.     29.7 x 42 cm

Although this man is not based on anyone I know, he is a type I have often seen. Bluff and outspoken, he speaks his mind with no thought to the consequences. But contrary to his personality he is seated in a magical restaurant where the wallpaper has peeled away and come to life. Should he drink the fish swimming in his jug of water or add it to his other strange dishes?