The latest collaboration between New Zealand-born, London-based photo-artist Jamie Mcleod and Jeremy Reed, one of Britain’s most innovative and prolific writers, Anaconda Johnny has just been published. This is the second time Mcleod and Reed have worked together, previously collaborating on a book about the singer and performer Marc Almond, Adored and Explored, with Reed providing the words and Mcleod the images. For Anaconda Johnny, the pair say they intend to “evoke the 21st century spirits of both Genet and Rimbaud, if either were alive with a camera and ink”.
From Anaconda Johnny. Image: Jamie Mcleod
With both artists exploring the city at night and its anti-hero inhabitants as their subject matter, this is an apposite pairing, and the book presents Central St Martins and LCC-trained Mcleod’s highly filmic and evocative photographs, juxtaposed with neon signage and street detritus, interspersed with poems by Reed which are outstanding for their vital, extraordinary precisely drawn imagery and his consummate control and use of language.
Of his subjects Mcleod says they are, “the lost and the lonely, the beautiful and the ruined. Serpent boys from the street offering you venomous treats. A place where all roads meet and lost boys are consumed whole – Anaconda Johnny, Jack off Johnny, Roko Le Koko and his gang of criminal lovers. All graphically composed to create something borrowed, something stolen, something new and a lot that is blue.”
From Anaconda Johnny. Image: Jamie Mcleod
Both artists succeed in creating a moving and unique narrative out of the city’s underbelly, its graffiti-slashed corridors, and championing its most unlikely anti-heroes.
McLeod continues, “The city is a puzzle confusing, attractive, a place of entrapment and bombardment, you can lose your way and your mind, I lost both. I traveled on an endless journey through the city of night, into the land of labyrinths with smoke and broken mirrors. Places blessed with pure evil, into the heart of darkness. A journey from uptown luxe-lands to the trash cans, via heartbreak hotel where nothing was left alive except ugly memories. I offer you up the fruits from the brutes.” Glass interviews Mcleod to find out more about this unique book and exhibition of a selection of images from it which are now on show in London.
From Anaconda Johnny. Image: Jamie Mcleod
How did this collaboration with Jeremy Reed come about?
Jeremy and myself have previously collaborated on the book on Marc Almond called Adored & Explored many moons back. This collaboration had been in the pipeline for a while actually and went through many changes. I’m a massive fan of both Jeremy’s poetry and the Ginger Lights music / performance.
How did you find making artwork with a poet? What were the challenges, if any?
I think it came really easily for me working with a “word man” as words and images are inextricably linked. Im a visual thinker, obviously, but sometimes I can barely string a sentence together, so to work with such a formidable and grossly talented poet like Jeremy is a match made in heaven for me. Words when they resonate, trigger movies in my mind. I can see them and I smell them. The images I paired with the poems are random and not illustrative of his ideas in any way but there is a link in the narrative somehow to the image. Some people will see this and some won’t.
What inspires you as an artist and, in particular, what was the inspiration for Anaconda Johnny?
The flicker flickers of nightlights on an all-night bus driving through the desert sands. Butterfly wings, ladybirds, alligator boys and serpent girls. Trawling through the luxe-lands and into trash cans, via heartbreak hotel and then back again for some more.
From Anaconda Johnny. Image: Jamie Mcleod
As far as I know, you like to shoot on film. Do you prefer this medium? And if so, why?
I like digital as well for the clarity and for its ability to be manipulated and obviously for its low cost. Analogue style and using film and photo paper is going back to the cave in photographic terms and I like that nothing can be manipulated or airbrushed. So it’s got that purist vibe of using very little tricks to arrive at the great image. Not many people can take a great image on an old film camera but with digital you can.
Anyone can be a photographer with a digital camera actually if you know some fundamentals. Film is a hassle as it’s time- consuming, dirty and toxic but it has a resonance that digital doesn’t have for B & W images anyway. I know when an image is being developed it really still is for me like a magical process watching it come to in the developer.
Personally, if I was to buy an art photo, ultimately, I would want it hand-printed and taken by the photographer so their fingers and printing style shows through. I don’t really want to buy digital inkjet images that are printed like money. I do believe just like vinyl records some people will get bored with the digital medium and go back to the analogue process.
From Anaconda Johnny. Image: Jamie Mcleod
Your last couple of shows have explored print and image making? Can you give us some insight into why you are producing a book as well to accompany the show? Or which came first, the book or idea of a show?
It’s really both actually. I’ve always had a big bag of work that I had never shown so that needed to be released for my own sanity. The book idea was on a slow burner that related directly to the show so it made sense to release both at the same time. The book being like a souvenir in time of Jeremy’s and my pairing and mutual inspiration.
How did the show at the Horse Hospital come about?
Asking them if they would like to have my heavenly body and use it for forensic purposes.
How do you see your work evolving?
It just goes on like a train from one station to the next. Hopefully getting closer to home and staying on the rails and not slowing down.
by Caroline Simpson
Anaconda Johnny by Jamie Mcleod and Jeremy Reed is published by Pulp & Pigment Print and retails at £10. It is available at Amazon and Gays the Word
A selection of the images from the book are on show at the Horse Hospital, Russell Square, London until December 20, 2014