Chickens in the Chapel

Aman Aheer, a rising star on the London art scene, speaks with art historian and curator Elly Stephenson about his craft and inspirations – and putting on his first solo show in the UK together.

When did you start making art, and when did you begin painting?

One of my earliest memories of making art and actually thinking of it as “art” was probably when I was about 10 years old. At the time I thought Stargazer lilies were just the most stunning things and I equated art with beauty. I thought if something is considered art it must be something beautiful. We were given free time in class to draw anything we wanted, and of course I started drawing a Stargazer on fuchsia pink construction paper with chalk pastels and blended the colours with my finger. I hated feeling dirty as a child and didn’t like how the chalk would rub all over me, so I switched to oil pastels; I fell in love with that sort of warm waxiness that you get from rubbing pastel on paper. I showed it to my teacher and I remember him being impressed but sort of shocked and confused, that I drew this. He tacked it to the wall behind his desk and that’s when I was like, “Stargazers are gonna be my thing”. I kept drawing them for family members in coloured pencil and even in plasticine; and into the first year of high school. I’m really considering bringing them back into my work.

Tell me about your practice; the themes, mediums, sources.

I feel like the themes and ideas I’m working with are getting broader over time, which I am really enjoying. But ultimately I’m interested in how violence descends into these everyday mundane moments and how these moments can also feel, potentially, spiritual or religious. For example, the local butcher cutting bits of lamb neck or the neighbour waving to you across the street while coring an apple with a knife. These are the things that turn me on and make me want to paint. In terms of medium, I work primarily with oil but am dabbling with painting on sheet metal and also using stitch.

How does place inform your work? For example London?

I recently watched Agnès Varda’s Daguerréotypes and was like, “that it, that’s exactly it!” It’s this sort of clash of people coming from completely different vantage points, stuck together in this 50-block radius and remnants of their daily lives are overlapping in strange ways. I think London is the perfect example of this, especially my neighbourhood of South Tottenham which has really been fueling my work recently. This is also why I like to use stitch because it feels as if I’m forcing disparate things together, you know? There is both a beauty and a violence in doing that, I think. 

What was it like to have your first UK solo show in Cambridge?

Well I don’t think it could have been possible without your complete determination Elly, so thank you so much; I think you know how crazy and intense it got but I think it turned out beautifully in the end. I’ve visited this church a handful of times in the past few years and every time I would think “damn it would be crazy to have my work in here,” and then all of sudden I have paintings of cockerels, limbs, and shitting doves hanging from ropes in this 12th century building, and I am like “what the hell have I done!?” It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come often so I think we really did the most with it. 

How did you build on your practice for Man is Not a Bird? Has that show changed or added to your practice?

Well, we were just speaking about how place informs my work and I think it completely informed this show. It started with me seeing chicken wing bones scattered on the sidewalks of my neighbourhood on the daily. It’s the strangest thing, you know, that this bird has wings but cannot fly and so can be easily eaten and discarded on the street without even a thought. I wanted to think about this idea and equate it to the human condition in a way; Man’s desire to fly and be all powerful and divine but constantly failing. I wanted to paint this desperation and failure, and when the church opportunity came about I figured this is the best place, if not the only place to do this. I think the show allowed me to develop my practice in exciting ways; we worked on a pamphlet for the show together that had fantastic contributors, including yourself, respond to or draw from the work and interpret in their own ways which was so amazing to see. Also, the bronze casting of the many chicken wing bones I’d scavenged was something I wouldn’t have considered doing prior to this show. It really helped me think through how I can stretch an idea to its limits and into other realms of creative output outside painting.