REVEALED: KURT COBAIN'S ORIGINAL ARTWORK

REVEALED: KURT COBAIN'S ORIGINAL ARTWORK

A dark look into the mind of Nirvana’s tortured frontman

by Daryl Mersom

Kurt Cobain remains the only true icon of the post punk age. As the title of Brett Morgen’s recent documentary ‘Montage of Heck’ reveals, the montage was essential to Cobain’s aesthetic. Having led an extraordinary life - from an angst-ridden genius kid, turned brilliant drug addicted rock star, we continue to debate the nature of his suicide and his disturbing lyrics. Although known mostly for his musical accomplishments, Cobain was also a gifted visual artist. Many of his art works were created during a tender childhood consisting of innocent drawings and symbolic macabre paintings that were closely connected to his later troubled home life. Yet it’s the rich symbolism in his art that holds the potential to illuminate the singer’s life in new ways.

The late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain pictured at the age five. Courtesy of the Cobain Estate.

As we take a glance at Cobain’s artwork it is the symbolism that stands out for me: the tree, cross, seahorse and fetus. These symbols pervade the paintings and it is high time that we consider the way in which they link to Cobain’s life story. The tree symbol appears in the music video for ‘Heart-shaped box’ where there is an anthropomorphic wood, which surrounds the band in a way that recalls Dante’s wood in the ‘Inferno’. There is evidence that Cobain made this association to Dante when we recall that the back cover of ‘Nevermind’ features images of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’ Is the artist foreshadowing the contentious issue of his own death by including the allusion to Dante where the men have been turned into trees for committing suicide? It strikes me that the symbols of the cross and tree are used in the music video to create a sort of non-linear montage which point forward and back; both foreshadowing the details of Cobain’s own death and recalling the suffering of Christ.

Drawing, personal note to Courtney Love and "Steps to Nirvana" An excerpt from Kurt Cobain’s journal.

1993, Kurt Cobain met William S. Burroughs at his home in Kansas. Burroughs describes the meeting… “I waited and Kurt got out with another man. Cobain was very shy, very polite, and obviously enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t awestruck at meeting him. There was something about him, fragile and engagingly lost.

The recurrence of the seahorse and sperm symbols might be better understood by another master of the non-linear montage: William S. Burroughs, who Cobain asked to play the Crucified man in ‘Heart-shaped box.’ When the pages of his novel ‘Naked Lunch’ are said to have fallen out of his briefcase he simply reshuffled them and put them back in with no regards to their order. Burroughs said that the novel could be opened on any page and still make sense. This non-linearity is evident in the collaboration between Keith Haring and William Burroughs titled ‘Apocalypse.’ The art work, which is currently, valued at over twenty thousand pounds features sperm and sea creatures, which are reminiscent of Cobain’s work. In the frames, ‘A’ comes third place after two other images and disrupts the expected alphabetical order. These tantalizing biographical and symbolic connections force us to reconsider Cobain as an artist.

As we remember the innocent child inside the drug addicted Cobain, in this piece of his hanged fetus on the tree provides an exaggerated symbol of a man who, due to drugs, died before his time; a symbol to conjure with at Nirvana séances. Whilst the many symbols in the paintings take us into a dark wood of tangled and conflicting meanings the fetus on the tree offers a stark image of premature death which I would struggle to interpret in another way. For me, these troubling artifacts have helped shed a new light on the innocence in Cobain, and revealed a more gentle side of the troubled genius who was the very embodiment of fallen angels, one of those creatures whose trajectory was as brief as it was brilliant.

 

Leave a comment

Please note: comments must be approved before they are published.

MEET THE ARTISTS CHINA CAN'T KEEP CONTAINED

Artists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu display dead babies & live animals at Guggenheim Museum Exhibition

Peter Yeung

Read more »
Share »

JOSEPH BEUYS: I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME

What we can learn from artist about race relations and how to heal a nation    

Peter Yeung

Read more »
Share »

A SEXLESS SOCIETY IS HERE

Fashion rides the gender blending trend  

Maria Raposo

Read more »
Share »

NAN GOLDIN: THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY

The artist captures the essence of humanity and life on the edge

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

THE HEDI SLIMANE EFFECT ON YVES SAINT LAURENT

How the designer remade the house of Yves Saint Laurent

Maria Raposo

Read more »
Share »

SYNCHRODOGS: “I must be dreaming”

We speak to the photography duo about synchronicity & the power of dreams

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

THE COLLAGE RENAISSANCE

Contemporary collage is the new Pop Art collectors are buying into

Harriet Baker

Read more »
Share »

DAVID BOWIE PUSHED THE LIMITS OF MUSIC, ART & FASHION

Bowie was an artist and an explorer that embodied true individuality that our generation craves

Fiona Ma

Read more »
Share »

MEET THE ARTISTS CHINA CAN'T KEEP CONTAINED

Artists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu display dead babies & live animals at Guggenheim Museum Exhibition

Peter Yeung

Read more »
Share »

JOSEPH BEUYS: I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME

What we can learn from artist about race relations and how to heal a nation    

Peter Yeung

Read more »
Share »

A SEXLESS SOCIETY IS HERE

Fashion rides the gender blending trend  

Maria Raposo

Read more »
Share »

NAN GOLDIN: THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY

The artist captures the essence of humanity and life on the edge

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

THE HEDI SLIMANE EFFECT ON YVES SAINT LAURENT

How the designer remade the house of Yves Saint Laurent

Maria Raposo

Read more »
Share »

SYNCHRODOGS: “I must be dreaming”

We speak to the photography duo about synchronicity & the power of dreams

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

THE COLLAGE RENAISSANCE

Contemporary collage is the new Pop Art collectors are buying into

Harriet Baker

Read more »
Share »

DAVID BOWIE PUSHED THE LIMITS OF MUSIC, ART & FASHION

Bowie was an artist and an explorer that embodied true individuality that our generation craves

Fiona Ma

Read more »
Share »

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY GETS HYPER-REAL

From Erwin Blumenfeld to Nick Knight, fashion constructs fantastical images

Greg French

Read more »
Share »

THE EVOCATIVE IMAGES OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Eminent street photographers find beauty in the ordinary

Leah Sinclair

Read more »
Share »

THE ZINE SCENE IS BACK

Self-Publishing is Having a Moment and It’s Redefining Youth and Self Expression

Leah Sinclair

Read more »
Share »

PLASTIC PURGERY – BARBIE IN BONDAGE BREAKS THE INTERNET

Photographer Mariel Clayton Reinvents the Stereotype of the Female Form

Fiona Ma

Read more »
Share »

LOUIS VUITTON - SERIES 3 EXHIBITION

Nicolas Ghesquière: less mask, more man

Maria Raposo

Read more »
Share »

REGENERATION OR GENTRIFICATION?

The changing face of London’s artistic communities

Peter Yeung

Read more »
Share »

INSIDE THE CHELSEA HOTEL

The legendary New York hangout of rockstars and Hollywood royalty

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

IN CONVERSATION WITH OLAF BREUNING

The artist talks about the endless interpretations of his work and life

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

REVEALED: KURT COBAIN'S ORIGINAL ARTWORK

A dark look into the mind of Nirvana’s tortured frontman

Daryl Mersom

Read more »
Share »

ABOUT A GIRL: TEENAGERS IN POP CULTURE

Exploring media fantasies from saints to bad-ass sinners of female youth

Leah Sinclair

Read more »
Share »

ART GONE VIRAL

Performance art videos are paving the way for activism through social media

Leah Sinclair

Read more »
Share »

IN CONVERSATION WITH ARTIST TOM LEAMON

The ritual experiments of painting and poetry

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

COLLAGE ARTIST HOLLY-ANNE BUCK/COLLAGISM

We talk to the artist about playing with abstraction & reconstructing reality

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

FROM UNISEX TO ANTI-FASHION

Meet Rudi Gernreich, the first gender blender fashion activist

Alessandro Esculapio

Read more »
Share »

THE REVIVAL OF WARP N’ WEFT

From artisan to art; the lost craft of tapestry is making a comeback

KOD Staff

Read more »
Share »

THE ALCHEMY OF COLLAGE: ARTISTS IRINA & SILVIU SZEKELY

Art is not art if it doesn’t generate misrepresentation, confusion, anger or sarcasm

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »

THE CREATIVE CLASS: MAKING IT THEIR WAY

Photographer Francesca Allen captures the talented, genuine and real

Maria Raposo

Read more »
Share »

'80S ICON KEITH HARING’S POP SHOP

The Art and Commerce of Giving Back

Alessandro Esculapio

Read more »
Share »

THE DEATH OF BRONSON

The art and literature of "Charles Bronson"; Britain's most notorious prisoner

KOD Staff

Read more »
Share »

THE PSYCHEDELIC LOVE-IN OF THE FABULOUS COCKETTES

San Francisco’s original underground glitter troupe

KOD Staff

Read more »
Share »

THE MODERN DAY DANDY CULT

Old fashioned values and classic sartorial style returns to mens fashion

Ellie Howard

Read more »
Share »
Top