The Story behind Arcane Sin’s new Exhibition, Deathmask

London born artist Arcane Sin is known for his colourful use of make-up and for his deeply, and highly complex symbolic visual work. His work has appeared in multiple group shows as well as being nominated for numerous awards, most recently being shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award. In September 2016 he curated his first show Nightflowers which was selected and reviewed by the Royal Academy as one of their picks for shows to see that week (2-8th September), Sin has also had two solo exhibitions, DOLLS (2012) and PRETTY (2014) both being well received and DOLLS actually having its original run extended. Attitude caught up with him about his new exhibition, Death Mask.

This exhibition has taken you a year to put together, could you tell us a bit about your journey.

Well when I started doing the drawings I was at my lowest and feeling suicidal and at that time there wasn’t any obvious point to doing them. There was no long term objective, I just found that doing them would help slow the suicidal thoughts down for a couple of minutes, if I was lucky a bit longer. As the year progressed and I’d done more and more drawings I started to realise that I looked forward to doing them, I started to think they might actually be able to help me to deal with what I was going through, and since I was still alive I thought that maybe they could become a show.

How did you settle upon the name of the exhibition?

The title Deathmask actually came from how I felt, when I had my breakdown and became suicidal. It really did and still does feel like you’re wearing a mask, everything seems to happen outside of you, when you laugh for example it feels like only the very top layer of your skin is laughing, you don’t feel anything inside, you become numb, both physically and mentally, you want to make things better but at the very same time you don’t, you feel like you’re in some sort of permanent limbo. It got to a point where I begin to feel like I was permanently wearing what I can only describe as a sort of metaphorical deathmask.

What can people expect when they come and visit Deathmask?

People can expect to see a extremely personal show, I can’t really explain it any other way. I do have to give a trigger warning and say that if anyone has either attempted suicide or is feeling depressed this show might be a hard thing to look through, so you know just be aware.

How does Deathmask compare to your previous work?

It really doesn’t, my work before was mainly about external issues such as make-up or fashion where I would use a lot of modern technology, digital photography, digital manipulation and make it as colourful and bright as possible. However this show is pretty much the opposite, this show is about a deeply personal subject where I’ve kind of gone back to basics using only pencil, pens and watercolours and reduced the numbers of colours to the bare minimum.

The exhibition is in support of CALM; can you tell me a bit about why you chose this particular charity?

Well whenever I do a solo show I always try to work with either a non-profit organization or charity, but since I hadn’t really planned to do a show I was kind of stuck, I didn’t really know who to get into contact with or who to talk to. I found CALM by accident, I was walking home and I saw a poster that had I think the word ‘Overmanalysing’ on it and had the word CALM at the bottom, I had no idea what CALM was but when I got home I looked them up and found out that they were a charity that works to prevent male suicide. After that I used their helpline a few times and then finally got in contact with them about this show and here we are. The show will be accepting donations for CALM throughout its run.

Deathmask opens on the 3rd of February at 5TH BASE GALLERY (23 Heneage St, London E1 5L) and is on till the 14th Of February, open 12am-7pm daily.

CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) is a registered charity, which exists to prevent male suicide in the UK. Call 0800 58 58 58 or visitthecalmzone.net