{"id":19533,"date":"2018-06-21T09:06:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T09:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/about.35.197.208.187.nip.io\/?p=19533"},"modified":"2025-09-24T05:51:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T05:51:31","slug":"meet-maxwell-breantonia-nicholas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zealous.co\/about\/spotlights\/meet-maxwell-breantonia-nicholas\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Maxwell, Breantonia and Nicholas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maxwell Rushton<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Winner Emerge Awards Arts Prize<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us a little bit about your winning work, Drawn Out. What inspired you to create this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m interested in how influences which we are exposed to since birth shape our human nature. The piece was about trying to connect and learn from a part of myself that existed before I was taught to be an adult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawn Out<\/a> is a duration drawing that I made over the course of a year whilst living in isolation in the Alps. I repeated a single motif of four vertical lines across four ten meter rolls of paper. The motif of lines is the same as the one that appeared in my earliest drawings. I\u2019m not sure why I started drawing a set of four lines when I was a child but now to me, they represent my most primal and honest expression; who I am now and the art I produce is tarnished by the reasoning of logic and countless cultural influences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used the lines (eventually I made around 10,000,000 of them) and the distance from external stimulus as a means to try and understand the most significant impactors and influencers of my nature and nurture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Drawn Out<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What is your aim when creating art? Do you try and evoke specific reactions from your audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I create different art for different aims. The aim for Drawn Out<\/a> was to combine the technique of repeating those lines with the conditions I made them in, to create a lens that allowed me to understand some of the truths about who I had become and why. The aim was also for the piece to be a stepping stone, as it was a right of passage I needed to go through so that I could then make other art; art that is better informed by a greater understanding of the human condition, through what I learned from observing my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout school, I found I was being taught to consider the audience before, during and after I made a work of art. That the audience is the purpose I am to create for, and when I create, it should be an act of collaboration with them keeping their expectations in mind. This might be how I\u2019ve made some pieces but this is not how or why I made Drawn Out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything you\u2019re afraid of as an artist? How do you overcome that fear? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I worry that I won\u2019t be able to finish some of the pieces that I want to make. For instance, I have an idea for a work that will take years of physical and mental discipline and a lot of sacrifices. When I think about that work, it can be daunting, so I guess I\u2019m afraid of my own art but not as much as I am about not making it, and what that will do to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way I\u2019ve overcome that problem in the past is to maintain daily progression and to shrink my life to accommodate for the creation of the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Brand New Me<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you delve into other artistic mediums?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes my practice is multidisciplinary because each of my ideas has a different texture, so the mediums I use need to match the idea. I cross over to traditional mediums of painting and sculpture frequently but I tend to use them in not-so-traditional ways. For one piece (Brand New Me<\/a>), I painted my logo on a large canvas using over 11 litres of my blood as I wanted to see how far I could take the relationship man has with the material world we exist in by becoming a piece of advertising myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also made a sculpture (Left Out<\/a>) that I took to the streets and filmed as the public reacted to it. This piece was about homelessness and the footage reached over 40 million people through the medium<\/em> of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have anything exciting lined up?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a few projects on the go which I\u2019m excited about but it\u2019s a bit too early to speak about them, sorry!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow Maxwell on Instagram<\/a> \/ Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left Out<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Breantonia<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Winner Emerge Awards Music Prize<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are your earliest memories of music? Who are your biggest influences?
<\/strong>
My earliest memories of music are dancing around and singing in the front room with my Mum. Both my parents had the absolute best catalogue of music, from Stevie Wonder to Chaka Khan, Earth, Wind & Fire to Patti LaBelle and Whitney Houston. I was surrounded with real soulful music and when I showed an interest in singing particularly, it was because of the amazing vocalists I grew up listening to. They have of course become my biggest influences too, especially Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston. More recent powerhouses include Lauryn Hill, Jazmine Sullivan, Anderson Paak and Solange and I think it\u2019s reflected in my own work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything you\u2019re afraid of as a musician? How do you overcome that fear?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something that I dealt with, and still do on certain days, is low self-esteem and fear. Being a creative person means pouring yourself into your work and once that work goes out to the public to judge and criticise, it can have a direct impact on you. It becomes so hard to detach yourself from your art because it\u2019s an extension of you. Sometimes you can\u2019t look at your work and subsequently someone\u2019s opinion on it, objectively. A negative opinion on your song becomes a negative opinion on you. I\u2019ve come to learn this just isn\u2019t the case. Music is so subjective \u2013 that\u2019s its beauty. Not everyone is going to like everything but you\u2019re not doing it to please people. You\u2019re creating music to share your gift and connect with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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