Interview
Beki Cowey
Beki Cowey is a photographer and artist. Born in North Yorkshire, U.K., and most recently based in London and Helsinki. She is currently traveling and trying to figure out quite where in the world she belongs. Her photography career began in the early 2000s when she dropped out of her fashion studies, picked up a camera, and jumped on a tour bus with a friend’s band. Her work has since been published and exhibited internationally. Having moved away from photographic practice for a number of years the pandemia forced her to refocus and realise she would only find happiness where she was creatively fulfilled.
She currently works commercially as a freelance music/ fashion/ lifestyle photographer. Her contemporary art practice explores both those living on the fringes of society and her own life experiences. Current projects include The Widow centred around the tropes and stereotypes of widowhood and the processes of grief and subsequent rebirth that she has encountered since the death of her late partner, a long-play analog documentary photography project exploring gentrification, touristification and resortification of neighbourhoods she observes on her travels, and a book of her archival black and white nightlife, party and backstage photography from the years 2004 until 2006.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“After my late partner died in autumn 2021, I returned to my creative roots after some time away working in other industries. I guess I needed something help to unpack and unpick what I was going through. Things clicked back into place and in the last 12 months, I’ve shown work in over 20 different exhibitions, photography festivals, and art fairs internationally.
If we go back to the beginning, I studied fashion design at university but dropped out to go on tour photographing my friends’ bands. I took a lot of pictures backstage and at parties - I’m now working on a book project of that. I think that to this day my work both my commercial photography and my contemporary fine art projects, I maintain this Rock’N’Roll edge through my aesthetics and inspirations. Music plays a big role, my mind soundtracks everything, it sneaks into my work, in ideas, even in the names of pieces.
My parents, I guess were a mix of punk and hippie; my dad encouraged me to question everything, my mom is very creative, she has a very artistic eye. We traveled to Greece most summers, usually small islands where I got taken around ruined temples and petrified forests. My favourite bedtime story wasn’t a Disney princess it was the myth of Persephone. Pomegranates often feature in my work. I think my parents would have liked me to be a doctor or a lawyer but really I couldn’t help but be primed to follow the route I have. One of my last conversations with my dad, before he was killed, he said he didn’t care what I did, so long as I gave it my all.”
What inspires you?
“Life, and how I respond to it. I have thousands of ideas in my Apple notes. It’s a font of chaos. A line from a song, a throwaway comment when chatting with friends. Anything can grow into something if you give it the right conditions. A lot of my work is autobiographical but taps into wider present-day themes. I’m always looking to create something that elicits a response. That makes you think or feel.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“I deal primarily with themes I encounter in my life. Creating art helps me work through problems. Helps me better understand both the issue and myself. The Widow project was initially envisaged as a short film, a creative catharsis after my late partner died. A way to explore both what I was feeling and the tropes of widowhood I felt others put onto me. Over time, like grief it shape-shifted, becoming several series of still images. Works from the first of which have been selected as finalists at Waterford International Film Festival for Best Cinematic Image and Triana Photo Festival for Best Image Series. I’m now working on the second series I will release in spring/summer 2024 which deals with a widow’s unique position at the intersection of death and sex, exploring rebirth and female sensuality. I’m also working on some bigger 3D installation pieces using some of the contemporary dance and movement I shot for the original film concept.
Another mini-series Bad Barbies, explores the impossible beauty standards that many women create for themselves through the use of AI photo filters. The pressures of social media culture and the mental health implications that this disconnect with reality creates, as people cease to recognise their own true reflection. Full disclosure, I still haven’t watched the Barbie movie, I guess I will catch it on a flight. I just found the reactions it spawned and the pink tsunami it created more interesting. When I was a kid Barbie was bad for us because of her unrealistic appearance. Now we are adults and doing far worse all on our own. The Nunsploitation project was inspired by my own experiences and so many conversations with my girlfriends about dating, and how after disappointments we were threatening to lock ourselves in a convent of sorts. The men we meet expect us in our 30’s or older to be sexy, to be attractive, but to still be “mint in shrink,” untouched by other hands. Even if they are about as pure as a sewer. This series became my response.”
“Creating art helps me work through problems.”
How would you describe your work?
“My working process starts as an idea which I actualise through lens-based practices. I use a lot of self-portraiture. While I occasionally have an assistant, much of what I do, I do it myself. Building props, special effects make-up, wardrobe styling. I build symbolism into many of the tiny details. I like to include these little nods and references here and there. It keeps it fun. It keeps people looking.
My family was half Catholic and half church of the barroom and bookie. My great aunt on one side had the pictures of the saints on the walls and the one on the other side was teaching me how to cheat at cards. This culture-clash influence comes through in symbolism and ideas I use in my work. I often mix religious imagery with elements of the esoteric. I like to crash together high and low culture, the ancient and the modern. Classics smashed into street punk and b-movies.
I shoot a lot of diptychs too. Both as self-portraits and still-life or vanitas. I am interested in dualities and dichotomies. I like explore these things that sit like oil and water, or run parallel tracks but never cross over, as well as meshing unexpected things together. I’m a little bit fascinated by the present-day need to separate things into distinct lots. This or that. Good or bad. I guess its how we have arrived at cancel culture.”
Which artists influence you most?
“This is a difficult question. I don’t really believe in “heroes”. I think it can vary a lot from project to project. I think I am more inspired by ideas than individuals. I’m interested in culture clashes and how disparate things can be woven together into something beautiful, evocative, and coherent. It’s easy to get trapped into repeating yourself if your field of inspiration is too narrow. My influences on any one piece can be very diverse. Art, music, poetry, books, movies - they all form a web.
As an example, my Nunsploitation (mint in shrink) series draws on classical reference points-religious iconography, and Renaissance painting. But then I mix these with 70’s Nunsploitation movies, fetish art, and men’s top-shelf magazines, the kind that come in plastic shrink wrap. This is just how my mind works.”
What is your creative process like?
“Each project is unique. Some arrive almost fully formed. I wake up and am like, right let’s do this! Others, there can be weeks of work researching reference points and notebooks filled with ideas. Often in my contemporary art practice I’m working alone. On the commercial photography side, with the editorial, portrait and product shoots, I’m fortunate to have clients and collaborators who not only allow but encourage me, to run wild with my ideas. Location shooting takes scouting and planning to find the perfect place. If I’m using the landscape in my art I really want it to illustrate something. In the first series of images I have released from my project The Widow, the Finnish landscape plays my supporting cast, conveying emotional and mental states as I work through the processes of grief and rebirth.
It’s important to know when to put things away. To take a break. Nobody creates well when their mind is too cluttered and full. Putting projects away on a shelf til you’re ready to do them justice. Learning to give myself boundaries. Taking a break is not giving up. I also shoot quite a lot of analog documentary and street photography. It stops me getting too lost in my own head. It’s easy to end up in art hermit mode. I shoot a lot of what I see on my travels, often broadly around the themes of gentrification, touristification, and resortification. It’s become a long-play project I’m working on which has been exhibited in galleries and photo festivals internationally. It gets me out into the world and keeps my eyes open.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“You need to stay fresh and relevant. I know you have to keep the wolf from the door but I see a lot of dull, bad rich people art. It gets boring. Everything has its limits and you have to know when to stop. Otherwise, if you keep churning out same-same pieces then you are totally replaceable by AI. Finding unique ways to explore emerging themes and creating art that gives people new ways to look at contemporary issues from an unexplored angle. Tapping into ideas, emotions, and mental processes that are not replicable. Creating a point of impact that is uniquely human.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I’ve mentioned a bit about The Widow project already, and works related to that have also been shown in galleries in Athens, Rome, and Glasgow. My main focus at the moment is the Nunsploitation (mint in shrink) series. The first piece previewed at Miami Art Week in early December 2023, before launching fully at Contemporary Venice art fair later in the month, and will also be showing at The Body Language - Venice International Art Fair 2024, which runs from 19th January to 2nd February at the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.
I am also happy to be returning to the second iteration of Athens Black & White Photo Festival in early February with one of my analog street photography pieces I shot on a backstreet in Hollywood. Last year, when I was selected by the jury it was the first show I’d had work in in along time and I’m grateful for the support the organisers showed me, it really helped me kick off a transformational year both for myself and my work.”
Instagram: @beki_takes_pictures
