Burning Ambition

This was the biggest week of her life. Gina Riley had been painting, drawing, sculpting and generally creating art for as long as she could recall. And in a few days’ time her work would be on display in an exhibition comprising entirely of her own art. It was as though all her twenty-six years had brought her to this very moment. This was what it had all been about, what she had been working for, striving towards.

Starting on Saturday, Gina’s work would be displayed in a small gallery on the outskirts of the city centre. The exhibition would run for a week. It would be reviewed by the local newspapers and even the regional television news would be present to cover the story. 

Gina had no time to be nervous about her upcoming debut, there was far too much to do for sitting around worrying.

One morning, with just a few days to go, a guy in his fifties entered the gallery. He had greying hair and a long coat. He had a deliberately dishevelled air about him. He looked like the aging singer of a 90s indie band that were still touring.

‘Sorry,’ Gina said, ‘we don’t open until Saturday. There is a sign on the door.’ 

‘That’s why I’m here. I was wondering if you needed a hand.’

‘Oh, wow, I mean, yeah, it’s all a bit mad right now. There’s only a few of us. Any help would be appreciated.’ She admitted.

The guy looked around, nodded, he could see that. 

‘Have you had any experience with these type of events?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, a little, and you look like you could use a pair of hands.’ He said.

Gina put down the canvas she was carrying. 

‘Yes, I really could.’ She pointed to the neon sign on her wall bearing her name. ‘That’s me, Gina Riley.’

‘I’m Karl. Please to meet you. Stick the kettle on. We’ll have a cup of tea, and then we’ll get cracking.’

As they sipped their mugs of tea, Karl wandered around the small art space, taking it all in.

‘Every exhibition has to have a theme.’ He paused, looking around at the works.

‘Yes,’ he nodded in approval, ‘I think we can do this. While you want similar pieces together to a certain extent, there has to be a flow going right the way through the gallery. An exhibition should be like a river, or maybe even a roller-coaster. You want the visitor leaving the gallery, with their heads spinning from the journey. It should be an experience.’

‘And you think I have the paintings to do that?’ Gina asked.

‘I think it’s amazing. You have a real gift.’ He said.

Karl spoke with such authority, as though he knew what he was talking about. His suggestions did make sense and were backed up with enthusiastic talk about art and exhibitions. 

‘What are you thinking about lighting?’ Karl asked.

Gina pointed to the ceiling, we have lights.

‘These are a bit too stark. We’re holding an art exhibition, not opening a hardware store. Let me make a couple of calls, call in a favour or two.’ He said.

‘We’re over budget as it is, I can’t start splashing out on fancy lighting.’

‘I’ll see that it doesn’t cost you a penny, perhaps a small notice in the window. Lighting by such-and-such.’ Karl said, reaching for his mobile phone. 

That afternoon, while Gina and Karl picked particular pieces for certain spots in the gallery, electricians carried wires and bulbs and ladders through the place, drilling and screwing as they went. 

Over more mugs of tea, as they looked around, the gallery itself being the current work-in-progress, Gina asked the question she’d been wanting to ask.

‘Are you an artist yourself?’

‘I have dabbled in the past.’ Karl said.

‘Have you ever had anything exhibited?’

‘The odd piece here and there.’ Karl shrugged.

The light-fitters shook Karl by the hand, telling him the job was done.

‘Thanks a lot, fellers, appreciated.’

‘Are you ready?’ Karl asked Gina. 

‘For what?’ 

‘To see what your art really looks like.’

‘I think I know what my art looks like. I am the artist.’

‘One moment.’ Karl grinned.

He flicked the stark lights off, letting the room sit in darkness for a moment. Then he switched on the newly installed lights. 

Gina gasped. Where the room had been flooded in lights, harsh stark light, like a late-night ice hockey game, it was now bathed in pools of soft light, spotlights that perfectly illuminated each of her artwork. 

The others helping out clapped in appreciation. The lighting had transformed the space and the items on display. Gina studied her paintings, now framed in the perfect light, as though she was seeing them for the first time. 

Finally Saturday evening arrived. The evening of the opening of the exhibition. As the gallery was about to open, the crowds lining the pavement outside, chatting loudly in excitement, Karl buttoned his coat up.

‘I’ll be off then.’ He said.

‘Wait, you should be here, you’ve helped me out so much.’ Gina replied.

‘Not really my scene. I’m going for a pint. There’s a beer at the Golden Lion with my name on it.’ 

Karl jerked a thumb in the direction of the pub at the end of the street.

‘Wish me good luck.’ She said.

‘Why on earth would you want that?’ He said with a smile.

Gina said nothing, puzzled at the reply.

‘I wish you the very best. I’m sure you’ll be fine whatever happens.’ Karl said. 

Karl reached the door, turning to give her a salute before stepping out into the night. As Karl slipped out the door, the public, friends, and relatives, and the invited press, charged in as though it was the Boxing Day sales and the stores had just opened.

Gina mingled with family and friends, who enthused about the exhibition. She gave interviews and quotes for the journalists, she spoke into television cameras for the local news, and posed for photographs in front of her work.

She was reminded of a scene in a Beatles film. The Fab Four were being grilled by the press and were responding with all kinds of silly answers. When George Harrison had been asked what he called the Mop Top haircut, he had replied Arthur. And Paul McCartney had replied No, actually, we’re just good friends, to about half a dozen questions on a variety of topics. 

Gina explained to reporters, how she’d come to be an artist, how her mother had always said Gina had a headful of magic. It was true she lived in something of a dreamworld. Art was her escape, her lifeline. And now she hoped to be successful enough to make a living from her art.

Towards the end of the evening, as the guests were drifting away, a reporter from the Salford Advertiser came over. 

‘I noticed a familiar face leaving just as the event got started. Have you had a bit of help from a famous artworld figure?’ The reporter asked.

‘You mean Karl? He’s been helping me out this week.’ Gina said.

‘You do know who that was?’

Gina shrugged.

‘That’s Karl L Fleming, the famous artist.’ The reporter said.

‘You’re kidding me! I had no idea! Karl L Fleming? I should be helping him with his exhibit, not the other way round.’ She laughed.

Gina found Karl perched on a stool at the bar of the Golden Lion. He was sipping a pint of beer with a whiskey chaser. Gina ordered drinks for them both and took the stool next to him. 

‘You’re him, aren’t you? Karl L Fleming?’ She asked.

‘The very same.’ He said, raising his glass. 

‘When I asked if you’d ever had your work in a gallery, you said, once or twice. Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’

‘This week was all about you. Tonight is all about you. I’ve been there, done that. This is your moment to shine. You really should be proud of yourself.’ he said. 

‘I wanted to thank you again for your help this week. They say the reviews are going to be really good.’

‘And rightly so. You deserve it.’ Karl said. 

‘What about you? What’s your story?’ Gina asked.

‘That is a long story. How long have you got?’ Karl said.

Gina shrugged, suggesting she had as long as it took. 

Karl took a long swig on his beer, then spoke.

‘When I was your age I was selling out galleries all across London, Birmingham, Manchester. There were invitations to Paris, Rome, New York. People would scramble to own one of my pieces. Somehow, I captured the zeitgeist. I was the right artist, at the right time. I had my finger on the country’s pulse. What Warhol was to New York of the 60s, I was to Manchester in the 1990s. The city was the centre of the universe and I was the artist-in-residence. Everything just seemed to come together. The way I was thinking and feeling seemed to be exactly the way the public was feeling. 

‘Suddenly all the doors that had been slammed in my face for years were now open to me. There was nothing I couldn’t do.’

‘Wow, I mean, that must have been amazing. A dream come true.’ Gina said. 

‘It was what every artist dreams of. My art was being taken seriously after years of feeling invisible. I had all the money in the world. My pieces were selling for ridiculous amounts of money. I was making millions, billions. I was rich, beyond my wildest dreams. I was invited to lavish parties and winning all kinds of prestigious art awards. I was being hailed as the poster-boy for a new art-movement. I was swept up with it all. I went from struggling to put food on the table and pay the rent, selling paintings here and there, to posing for magazine covers, and doing radio and television interviews. The Prime Minister invited me to Number Ten, and I went along. They threw a party in my honour.’

Karl shivered at the horror of the recollection, then continued. 

‘When the success I’d being dreaming off actually happened it felt hollow, empty. It meant nothing. It felt like I had sold out. While the establishment showered me with praise and plaudits, I felt suffocated. I had become part of the establishment. My art had always been about alienation, disenchantment, the disenfranchised. My art had always been about being different, about being proud of not fitting in. I had always been the outsider looking in, holding a mirror up to society and suddenly, I was a part of it. I had been corrupted, tainted.’ 

Karl took another gulp of beer, and shook his head.

‘One morning I had this idea. I would hold one final art exhibition. I would bow out with an almighty bang. People would talk about this for years, I would make sure of that. My exhibit would confuse, bewilder, and spark conversation and debate. This would be my parting shot, my final bow, my curtain call. I would rock the art world and shock the wider media to its core. It would be perfect.’

‘What did you do? What was this great art exhibit?’ Gina asked.

‘My showpiece would illustrate that everything meant nothing and nothing meant everything. I gathered the press and all the artworld elite to the village of Bowness, over-looking Lake Windermere. There was a real festival atmosphere, hundreds of people flocked to the lakeside, eager to see what I would do next. And what I did shocked them all. In a field by the lake, I constructed a huge bonfire and dowsed the whole thing in petrol. As the sun set over the lake, I started the fire.’

Karl turned to face Gina. 

‘And I burned one million pounds in cash.’ He said. 

‘Yes, of course! I’ve heard about this. It caused an uproar.’ Gina said.

‘The burning caused outrage and controversy. There were so many complaints. These days I’d be cancelled. The sceptics didn’t believe it. They refused to believe I had actually gone ahead and destroyed the money, insisting that the notes didn’t look real, and that cash wouldn’t burn in that way.

‘Others said I was a disgrace to humanity, insisting that something good could have been done with the money. Several broadsheet newspaper columnists commented that the money could have gone towards building hospitals or on medical research, rather than destroying it.

‘I had wanted to illustrate that money meant nothing. I had wanted to make this grand gesture of turning my back on money, celebrity and that world, but that world twisted the narrative, making me the villain of the peace.’  

‘Do you stand by what you did? Do you regret it?’ Gina asked, gently, unsure what to make of the revelation.

‘I did what I thought was right at the time. I was young and angry and full of the ideals of the artist. I’m now a husband and father. Explaining to your family that you burnt a million pounds in the past, and chose to struggle on, that was a difficult conversation to have. I still don’t think they understand my decision, I’m not sure I do, myself.’

‘What was it all about, though? How does your story end?’ Gina asked.

‘Maybe that’s the point. Every story doesn’t have a perfect ending. That’s just life. Life is about working on the jigsaw puzzle, despite not being entirely sure that you have all the pieces.’

‘What’s next for you, Karl?’ She asked.

‘Another round of drinks, for starters.’ Karl said, waving his empty glass.

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom