I never met Hamish Kilgour. I don't profess to an encyclopaedic knowledge of the music of The Clean or his wider musical catalogue. I make these admissions not for some critical impartiality, but because both the personality of Hamish Kilgour and his musical career are undeniable forces of I Go Side On, the exhibition of Kilgour's creative works at Pūmanawa, a community exhibition space inside Christchurch's historic, beleaguered, Arts Centre.
Hamish Kilgour passed away in late 2022, aged 65. He left behind a legacy as one of Aotearoa's most cherished musicians. I Go Side On is a celebration of his life and creative output, a tribute to the artist's unique energy, influence, enthusiasm and generosity.
With the exhibition title taken from a song by The Clean, the band Hamish Kilgour formed with his brother David in 1978, music looms large throughout the collected artworks, ephemera, stories and atmosphere of . In text accompanying, a pastel on paper drawing from the 1990s, created during a visit to friend and exhibition co-creator Paul Kean's workplace; , a dense, quilt-like composition from 1976, made while still living at home in Dunedin and inspired by the iconic American band; and from 2002, in which energetic bursts of colour and a skewed rectangular shape imbue the work with folksy devotional reverence. But as Vangioni suggests, the interconnectedness of Kilgour's music and visual art is evident in more than explicit references or applications; there is an undeniable sense of the musical in the gestural mark-making, evocative narratives and palpable energy emanating from both his simple sketches and his more developed works. Everything, as they say, feels connected.
