Back in Black: The Leather Jacket Paintings

This presentation focussed on a series of paintings of leather jackets made as part of a wider research project about customised jackets in music subcultures.

Following on from previous papers given at IJMS conferences in 2013, 2016 and 2019, which detailed aspects of my research into heavy metal ‘battle jackets’, the proposed paper looked at the legacy of that project and considered a new series of works based on black leather motorcycle jackets.

My book Heavy Metal Armour (Intellect/University of Chicago, 2022) explored the links between clothing in motorcycle subcultures and metal music scenes and showed how battle jackets were born from the denim and leather worn by bikers.

The current paintings take closely cropped sections of leather jackets as their focus, the dark spaces becoming linked with two important strands of painting history – the vanitas still life and the minimalist black square.

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