When we speak to Leo Costelloe, they have just closed his solo show, Special Day, at Neven in East London. With the themes of their exhibition still front of mind, they shared with us their memories of growing up in rural Australia, their ongoing fascination with ritual motifs, and their changing views on digital culture.
There is an ephemerality to Costelloe’s work that is endlessly compelling. Through photography and sculpture, the London-based artist has spent much of his career capturing that which is fleeting, transient, and temporary. A dream, a thought, an aspiration — Costelloe harnesses the minutiae of daily life and uses it to create objects that speak to the most visceral parts of our shared existence.
For their latest exhibition, Special Day, Costelloe cast his eye towards the tropes and material cultures of the Western bride. At Neven, a long-haired mannequin in full bridal regalia kneeled before onlookers at the gallery window. Dainty silverware decorated with lace, ribbons, and pearls adorned the white walls. A polaroid of a dove emerged, luminescent, from the other side of the room. Here, the spectacle of ideal femininity and the ritualistic nature of romantic love was radically recontextualised. At Neven, and everywhere else in his practice, Costelloe asks us to confront the very nature of our learned ideals.
Hi Leo, thanks for speaking with me today. Let’s begin with some bio. You grew up in Australia before moving to London when you were 19 years old. What are your lasting memories of your childhood in Australia?
I was born outside of Canberra in rural ACT. My strongest, most visceral memories are from that place. We lived in run-down government housing. My dad worked as a tree surgeon and my mum was a student. I mostly remember our dogs, my dad’s motorbike, swimming in the river and that sort of thing. I think this type of rural upbringing follows you around. It’s the visceral memories of my family dynamics that shape so much of my work.
We moved to Sydney’s inner west when I was 11, right after my parents separated. When I was 13, we moved again to Perth in Western Australia. I started using the Internet habitually around this time. My mum had got a government job, and we had a computer with dial-up Internet. I have two older brothers who taught me about LimeWire, and I remember arguing with them incessantly about sharing the computer.
When we moved to Perth my two older brothers chose to stay in Sydney. It was just my mum and I who moved. We moved to a strange Australiana suburban place called Ferndale, but I went to high school in a port town called Fremantle. I don’t know if you’ve seen that cult Australian film Puberty Blues, but it was very much like a 2000s retelling of that — except I was gay and no one surfed and Western Australia had a meth epidemic at the time.
I suppose my most lasting memories (the ones that aren’t steeped in family lore) are of smoking weed and dying my hair with my friend Reece and kissing my teenage boyfriend in his car.
We moved to Sydney’s inner west when I was 11, right after my parents separated. When I was 13, we moved again to Perth in Western Australia. I started using the Internet habitually around this time. My mum had got a government job, and we had a computer with dial-up Internet. I have two older brothers who taught me about LimeWire, and I remember arguing with them incessantly about sharing the computer.
When we moved to Perth my two older brothers chose to stay in Sydney. It was just my mum and I who moved. We moved to a strange Australiana suburban place called Ferndale, but I went to high school in a port town called Fremantle. I don’t know if you’ve seen that cult Australian film Puberty Blues, but it was very much like a 2000s retelling of that — except I was gay and no one surfed and Western Australia had a meth epidemic at the time.
I suppose my most lasting memories (the ones that aren’t steeped in family lore) are of smoking weed and dying my hair with my friend Reece and kissing my teenage boyfriend in his car.
You graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA (Honours) in Jewellery Design. I’m curious about your choice to study jewellery over Fine Arts. Back then, did you picture yourself going on to become a visual artist?
I do believe that I have always been an artist. Maybe I’ve refined my skillset a bit and learned a bit more about how to monetise my practice. But I think an artist is more something that you just are? Maybe that’s a romantic notion.
I chose to study jewellery design because I was coming from a floristry background. It felt like a natural progression to move from impermanent materials such as flowers to something more enduring like metals. I consider jewellers and florists to be artists. I feel passionate about the validity of craft in the contemporary art world. I don’t necessarily believe in the role of institutions as a means of substantiating an art practice. So many brilliant artists exist outside of institutions, without having attended art school. The UK is terrible for promoting the idea that all successful artists come from institutions. I think further education is important, of course, but the arts education landscape in this country is dire. It’s important to recognise that there are other avenues outside of education through which you can express yourself and refine your skills.
I chose to study jewellery design because I was coming from a floristry background. It felt like a natural progression to move from impermanent materials such as flowers to something more enduring like metals. I consider jewellers and florists to be artists. I feel passionate about the validity of craft in the contemporary art world. I don’t necessarily believe in the role of institutions as a means of substantiating an art practice. So many brilliant artists exist outside of institutions, without having attended art school. The UK is terrible for promoting the idea that all successful artists come from institutions. I think further education is important, of course, but the arts education landscape in this country is dire. It’s important to recognise that there are other avenues outside of education through which you can express yourself and refine your skills.
I want to ask you about your use of glass, metal, and silver within your practice. I’m interested in the way that you juxtapose these solid, hard materials with what appear to be (at least initially) soft, transient motifs. What is it about these materials that draw you in?
Initially I was drawn to the contexts in which these materials exist and their connections to mainstream aesthetics. Concepts surrounding beauty as luxury and how material conveys ideas around status. The alchemy of working with materials like these is something that really drives me. Transmuting something into something else and playing with ideas around materiality and function has been a part of my practice for a long time. Maybe the practice is about the power of transformation and the materials are just a vehicle?
You recently staged a solo exhibition at Neven in East London. Titled Special Day, this show explored the figure of the Western bride, and her place in popular culture. Who, or what, were your references for this show? Who, or what, does this bride represent?
It's a motif and a character that is simultaneously public and personal, universal and local. It can both embody and unravel our own personal relationships to the way in which femininity is consumed, celebrated, and vilified in Western culture.
The bride figure was employed in this body of work to epitomise Western ideologies around wealth, status, and gender. I think it’s interesting to work with motifs and visual cues outside the realm of identity as a way of provoking conversation. There were a number of visual references I used to build the show, but I think it’s really up to audiences to discern what it all means. I think for me the interesting thing about this body of work is learning about peoples’ personal relationships to these aesthetic cues. I had a lot of conversations with different people around the conceptualisation of the show, and it really highlighted for me how instinctively people react to marriage and bridal culture. I don’t think society gives enough weight or importance to how impactful these aesthetic cultures are.
The bride figure was employed in this body of work to epitomise Western ideologies around wealth, status, and gender. I think it’s interesting to work with motifs and visual cues outside the realm of identity as a way of provoking conversation. There were a number of visual references I used to build the show, but I think it’s really up to audiences to discern what it all means. I think for me the interesting thing about this body of work is learning about peoples’ personal relationships to these aesthetic cues. I had a lot of conversations with different people around the conceptualisation of the show, and it really highlighted for me how instinctively people react to marriage and bridal culture. I don’t think society gives enough weight or importance to how impactful these aesthetic cultures are.
I think that your ongoing interest in semiotics is most visible in your work that recontextualises symbols of traditional femininity. What are your observations on how meaning changes when cultural or aesthetic signifiers are removed from their ordinary contexts and positioned, let’s say, within a gallery context?
The gallery is a fun place because you can really give people an opportunity to interrogate themselves and those around them without the boundaries of sociality. I like that about making art for the gallery. Maybe I’m asking a lot from an audience, but I think it’s nice to be able to put some blonde hair in a white box and for people to ask questions about the work. There’s not a lot of opportunities to do things like that. Popular culture is so driven by economy and immediacy that audiences don’t really get the opportunity to consider the work in question. I think using symbols and motifs as a way of engaging in discourse is important because it encourages a type of reflection, maybe? Also, there’s so much content out there these days. Sometimes I like to think of the work as a way to take stock or to reflect on what’s happening in aesthetics and popular culture.
Speaking of aesthetics, your online presence is impressive. Your Instagram grid is visceral and evocative and reminds me of 2010s Tumblr in a way that makes me yearn for the past. Having built such a large following (of which our beloved @honeymoon is a member) I’m curious: how does showing your artwork online differ from showing your artwork in a physical space?
I think showing work online has allowed me to communicate in a more diaristic and accessible way. I like to see how the work gets recontextualised on Instagram, and I like seeing it digested in a way that makes me feel connected to a community and understood. Sometimes things go a bit askew. I had a moment where a lot of my work was being adopted by mainstream wedding blogs and shared by these wedding influencers. It was kind of fun. I mean, I made a bridal film about my friend dying and then I would see stills from the film reshared in the stories of wedding dress stores. I suppose that’s the Internet for you.
It’s been said that digital culture has commodified femininity, romance, and beauty. How does digital culture influence the construction of our identities and fantasies, if at all?
There’s this amazing power in wielding the Internet. You get to edit and delete and perfect yourself. It’s cool and exciting and damaging and depressing all at once. Commodify is a strong word because it removes the personal experience of the people who participate in these cultures, and I think the Internet is a participatory culture.
Maybe we could argue that digital culture has replaced subculture and in doing so, has created a more central, globalised mainstream that’s only accessible to a percentage of the world. I think that the Internet has made us all believe that before it, we were lonely, when really that wasn’t the case.
Human connection is so chaotic and takes a lot of work. Digital culture, for some reason, has made everyone believe that it’s actually very simple and easy and I think that’s where it has influenced our identities and fantasies. I mean, in regards to aesthetic beauty, it is a commodity and totally subject to fashion and trends. The Internet has just increased the speed at which we access and consume these things.
Maybe we could argue that digital culture has replaced subculture and in doing so, has created a more central, globalised mainstream that’s only accessible to a percentage of the world. I think that the Internet has made us all believe that before it, we were lonely, when really that wasn’t the case.
Human connection is so chaotic and takes a lot of work. Digital culture, for some reason, has made everyone believe that it’s actually very simple and easy and I think that’s where it has influenced our identities and fantasies. I mean, in regards to aesthetic beauty, it is a commodity and totally subject to fashion and trends. The Internet has just increased the speed at which we access and consume these things.
What would you identify to be the key influence in your practice? Are you inspired by film, music, literature, the Internet — or something else entirely?
It changes and I go through phases. I’m sort of in an anti-Instagram episode at the moment. I’ve been feeling a sort of image fatigue? I’ve been listening to the new Cindy Lee album, Diamond Jubilee, which I’m really into. I also recently got a dog, which has made me not care so much about feeling inspired because I just want to walk her and play with her and see how she feels about being alive. I think my friends are probably a huge influence on my work, and my boyfriend as well.
I’ve also been enjoying watching old Fashion Police clips on YouTube. Joan Rivers is fun. I like the Internet for its insincerity and because it’s a nice place to play out these sorts of parasocial fantasies, but I’ve been a lot more engaged in being at home by myself and offline. With my work intersecting so much with the Internet, I have found myself returning to the insularity of my adolescence.
I’ve also been enjoying watching old Fashion Police clips on YouTube. Joan Rivers is fun. I like the Internet for its insincerity and because it’s a nice place to play out these sorts of parasocial fantasies, but I’ve been a lot more engaged in being at home by myself and offline. With my work intersecting so much with the Internet, I have found myself returning to the insularity of my adolescence.
What are you working on at the moment?
A few cute things actually! I have a collaboration with a Shanghai-based fashion brand Marchen coming out this summer. I’ve been working on it for a while and I think it’ll be fun. It’s a sort of carry-on of the jewellery work I do, but maybe a bit more accessible.
I’m in a group show opening at Matt-Carey Williams gallery in November, which I’m making a new work for. I’m excited to be showing alongside some really special and exciting artists. I’m also working on a photobook. I’ve been shooting for a while, but hopefully it will be released late next year. I’m so excited for it — I’ve been working with my close friend Chris on the images, and I think it’ll be so special.
I’m in a group show opening at Matt-Carey Williams gallery in November, which I’m making a new work for. I’m excited to be showing alongside some really special and exciting artists. I’m also working on a photobook. I’ve been shooting for a while, but hopefully it will be released late next year. I’m so excited for it — I’ve been working with my close friend Chris on the images, and I think it’ll be so special.
