Artist and poet Arch Hades made headlines globally when her NFT poem ‘Arcadia’ fetched a record-breaking hammer price of $525,000 at Christie’s. Hades updated poetry for the digital generation, presenting her poem at auction as a 9-minute, 48 second animation soundtracked by musician RAC. Hades’ ‘Arcadia’ is a paradox, for the viral poet laments the overwhelming power of the digital age where we are glued to our screens 24/7 with lines such as “I want to break free of this labyrinth/ switch off all these screens/ escape this simulacrum/ which makes man into machine.”
A new body of work created by Hades sits at the intersection between fine art and poetry, and she has created a series of paintings with her prose inscribed into the frames. There is a dark gothic feeling to Hades’ paintings and an existential element to her words. ‘Odyssey’, an acrylic on canvas depicting an avenue of trees disappearing into the distance, with ghostly white figures appearing which may or may not be figments of the imagination. ‘Dances’ features two feminine faceless figures wearing hooded white robes and staring into a dark abyss beyond a tree, reminiscent of characters from Margaret Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’.
Hades’ monochrome paintings featuring anonymous figures and slightly desolate landscapes evoke the symbolism of Edvard Munch, and perhaps the sense of existential anguish derives from her traumatic childhood. Hades was born in Russia but had to flee St Petersburg to London at the tender age of 8 after the tragic murder of her Father.
After publishing her first poetry collection at the age of 27 and making such an impact on the global art market at 30 with her record-breaking auction price, Hades has revitalized the art of poetry for a new generation.
Hades made a stir on the US art market with a near sell-out stand in Miami last December. Culturalee spoke to Arch at her studio in the British countryside as she prepared to break the Latin American market with an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture at ZONAMACO in Mexico City, followed by the LA Art Show.
You earned a place in the record books when you became the highest-paid living poet after a record sale of Arcadia, your poem embedded in the first interdisciplinary fine art NFT sold at Christie’s for over half a million dollars in 2021. How did it feel to make such a huge impression with your poetry?
I’ll never forget it. It was surreal.
Before expanding your practice and moving into painting and sculpture, you wrote six volumes of poetry. What was behind the desire to transition into fine art, and does your background as a poet inform your visual arts practice?
Art is the language of my loss. I think all of us at one point or another (or constantly) are trying to answer the same question: how to deal with grief? Art can show us how to overcome nihilism and sublimate our sorrows by bringing beauty to the struggle. As a vehicle of empathy, art can help us feel less alone. A question at the forefront of my mind while painting these days is: How can I translate my anger and grief into something so soft that people want to look at and look at and look at?
After tragedy struck during your childhood in Russia when your father was murdered, you moved to the UK and studied PPE. Does the trauma you experienced as a child inform your writing and visual arts practice?
I feel uncomfortable with the phrase ‘tragedy struck’ in this context, as if it was an accident, or a natural disaster like a landslide or a tidal wave. Someone made a choice to commit a hideous act. Moving to a different country at such a young age was difficult, especially given the enormous cultural differences between East and West and having to learn a whole new language. It was at this formative moment in my life when I truly understood how vital language is to connection and belonging. I spent a lot of my childhood and adolescence in silence. So being able to connect with others through a few simple words feels like magic. For strangers to understand me through my works feels like belonging, and in turn, to witness something resonate with them because they feel how I felt, helps me see them better. We all belong, with all the rest, in our shared humanity. But my childhood doesn’t particularly inform my visual practice. The main traumas came after.
Your work as a visual artist was shown for the first time at Art Miami recently and was a big hit with US collectors, almost selling out and achieving over $100,000 in sales. What do you think it is about your work that has such universal appeal that it speaks to art buyers all over the world?
My work focuses on universal themes – existentialism, connection and belonging. I am forever exploring the human condition and our place in the natural world. The more you appreciate nature, the more you want to practice humanity.
You are a multi-disciplinary artist exploring existential themes. What is at the core of your art, whether it’s writing, painting or sculpture, is there a common thread that unites each discipline?
Art is a way for me to channel my deep sense of loss to create beauty out of memory. There will never be a satisfactory explanation for loss. In place of explanation, only memory. If the dead keep the living alive, let the living remember the dead. My grief counsellor encouraged me to channel my emotions into different mediums so that was the starting point. From there I spent many months and years experimenting with different materials and began my journey to becoming an artist. It has been hard work but anything worth having is worth working hard for.
You are self-taught as a poet and artist. What are your biggest influences and inspirations, and what is the starting point for a poem or an artwork?
If a line or a verse won’t get out of my head, it’s time to put it down elsewhere so it can stop shouting at me. There is a brilliant quote by Jasia Reichardt about the power of poetry: “the language of poetry is that which amplifies its meaning, and which can convey its message more forcefully and more tenderly than other forms of writing. As a form of communication, it is one for which the only rules are those of one’s own making.”
My literary inspirations are Lord Byron, Joseph Brodsky and William Maugham. My visual art inspirations are Romaine Brooks, Julie Curtiss, Francis Bacon, Edward Hopper and René Magritte.
As a gift to the collectors of my paintings, I create bespoke frames for each work into which I engrave the line of poetry that sparked the artwork into being. It was Dante Rosetti, whose poetry is presented with his paintings, who inspired me to do this. I am interested in the dialogue between the written word and visual art and how they can impact one another.
Which life experience shifted the way you see the world?
The pandemic. At our collective loneliest time, we turned to the creators – the musicians, the filmmakers, the artist, the writers. Their creations kept us sane. These artists kept us company when we had to be alone. Before Art seemed so optional, so extra-curricular. Turns out it’s essential to humanity.
Do you have any particular rituals in your day-to-day life that you see as important to your creative output?
I walk my dog Byron twice a day. In the mornings we go to the woods to feed the crows, in the afternoon we go to the fields to feed the horses (not my horses, not my crows).
Can you give any insider information on what you’ll be exhibiting at Zona Maco, Latin America’s leading art fair in Mexico City this February?
I will show two paintings, titled Funeral (my last available painting from 2022) and At Night (2024). Funeral is on a smaller scale to most of my paintings, but it is very special to me as it holds a rare memory I particularly treasure. The figures in the funeral procession aren’t human, they are crows. I once witnessed a murder of crows hold a funeral for one of their lost companions. It was a bizarre and moving experience, watching them mourn in their own way. But it reminded me that loss is universal, grief is universal, and the number of hours we get with our loved ones is not so large when we line them up in a row.
What have you got coming up?
I will be exhibiting new works at LA Art Show later in February and am currently working towards solo exhibitions in London and Venice.
