Let’s not kid ourselves. Calling yourself an”artist” ignites connotations of things like irresponsibility, adolescent romanticism, laziness, eccentricity and an achingly awful lack of funds. On the flipside, if you’re really lucky and niche enough, words like”madness” and”genius” will also come to be associated with you. But those last two traits are reserved only for a lucky few. And indie revered Daniel Johnston is one of them. His faithful allegiance of fans have included Tom Waits, David Bowie and Sonic Youth. The Simpson’s creator Matt Groening declared Johnston to be his all-time favourite lyricist. Kurt Cobian once performed wearing a t-shirt of one of Johnston’s drawings. But please, at the request of his publicist and for fear of damaging Johnston’s already fragile ego, try not to call him a “genius”. At the ripe old age of 49, Johnston still lives in Virginia with his parents and rarely leaves the house. Pinning him down for an interview is near impossible. Most of the time, he’d rather read comics. Yet it’s this elusiveness, coupled with the raw emotional sensitivity and frightening honesty in both his lyrics and his drawings, (informed by a lifetime of suffering with manic depression and bipolar disorder) that contributes to his cult level of intrigue. Which is why his new show of sketches at Monster Children Gallery, titled “Twisted Heart”, and the rumour that he may even perform a few songs too, is proving to be very exciting. This is Johnston’s first time in Australia so we don’t mind that there are headless torsos mingling with comic heroes, or that his lyrics are sometimes inappropriate or repetitively obsessing over his unrequited love for a girl named “Laurie.” It’s an ecletic concoction of weird and wonderful and hearing a Johnston song, or seeing a Johnston drawing makes us realize why god created artists. Check out his wonderfully twisted work below…
Daniel Johnston”Twisted Heart” opens at Monster Children Gallery on the 28th of January. He performs with Old Man River as his backing band at St Jeromes Laneway Festival on Sunday the 31st of January.
