BANKS VIOLETTE’S AMERICANA
A Stark, B+W View
Some artists create art as a way to capture something beautiful. Others make art just for the sake of making it. Banks Violette, on the other hand, is driven by something darker and more nihilistic. A prolific non-color artist, Violette finds roots for his installation artwork in heady themes varying from death metal, violence, and Americana horror to excess culture, political pollution, and, most prominently, death itself. Colors do not exist in his oeuvre. Whether he is creating paintings, prints, or visual installations, the work is only black, white, and any shades that accompany the use of metallics.
The Ithica-born and based artist has been in and out of the art scene for the past couple of decades. At times, he’s grown disillusioned with the art industry and taken time away from creating work at the breakneck speeds that’s been expected of him. Instead, he’s prioritized his health. However, Violette’s recent art world reemergence has been swift and powerful, and since 2024, he’s shown at five solo international shows.
A recent show at Antwerp’s TIK TAK gallery titled Wish You Were Here, was motivated by the death of the artist Steven Parrino, who passed in a motorcycle accident on January 1st, 2005, after leaving Violette’s party. In 2006, Violette curated a group show to pay respects to Parrino. Two decades later, his grieving is unfinished.
Empty floors of gallery space are deliberately left void, pulsing with loss. In one piece, white LED lights spell out “The End”, and a shattered disco ball breathes fire from the floor of the gallery. Over 20 years since Parrino’s passing, Violette builds meaning out of the incessant reverberations of grief.
Dismal fiction and harrowing reality are both borrowed motifs in Violette’s work. His art draws from real-world experiences while building upon bleak modern romanticism; the result is an experience that feels like the culmination of satanic screamo, dark web chat rooms, and a ruptured horror novel. His monochromatic American flags hang gritty and upside down. His LED chandeliers slump in toppled and discombobulated discord. Upon closer readings, his art tells true stories of youth suicides, anti-religious arson, and human sacrifice.
As the world tilts on its axis toward a more visually violent and fear-mongering state, Violette steps into production mode along with it, mirroring the downtrodden anxiety of people, young and old, in shades of black.