Kilford the Painter is parked up on the side of the road in London watching out for the traffic warden. He was about to drop off a painting but instead he’s on the phone for an interview.
Children near are probably watching him trying to gauge how many inches his tousled hair is raised up and how many cardinal directions it’s pointing in. Specks of pain could be drying in his five o’clock shadow and underneath his fingernails.
There is possibly a train station near by because: “It was kind of like there were two train tracks that were kind of distanced when I was younger, then they were kind of touching and going in the same direction ad now they’ve turned into one track – both music and art have morphed into one,” he said.
Conception of one of his paintings begins with the first note of music and it dies with the last. “The music starts and boom, pink straight through the middle of the virginal white canvas,” Kilford said on his blog. “I don’t recall much from the experience other than the loads of red towards the end and the electric prompting slices of yellow.”
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This expressive color overload taking place in his brain was being triggered during a concert with I Blame Coco, a British electro-pop band fronted by the daughter of Sting and actress/producer Trudie Styler.
He was huddled around his canvas on stage with a keyboard on his left and the drums to the right; there were a few thousand people behind him that faded into oblivion when the music kicked in and his fingers frantically attacked the white space with paint.
Kilford wouldn’t have it any other way.
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This is HIS style of painting without the restrictions of a college education in the arts. He can’t use a brush; he uses his fingers. He can’t draw for sh*t; if he drew something it wouldn’t actually look like what he was trying to draw.
His paintings are the visual interpretations of the guitar notes playing across the layers of his skin, the drum hits vibrating in his fingertips and the vocals wrapping up his body in warmth. “The art world is very elitist, or can be, I haven’t got any training – all I’m doing is going about what I feel in the [music,]” he said.
Kilford isn’t keeping it to himself or hiding it away in a fancy art gallery that you’ve never heard of or can’t pronounce. He enjoys the freedom and his ability to roll up to different gigs and environments to paint for people.
Art is for everyone.
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“I’m really appreciative of my fans support in terms of spreading the word and that’s why 300 editions go out every year, original, hand painted One Love canvases. It’s a different color each year that the fans choose, last year was black and this year is pink. I want the fans to have a collection.”
One Love originated from a conversation Kilford was having with a friend. He asked him a question that he poses to a lot of people, “What is the definitive song that represents you?” His friend promptly declared “One
