ART & DESIGN ON VIEW Different perspective: Conrad Jon Godly‘s career switch has led to fascinating creations of mountain scenery PHOTOS CXXXXXXXXX 62 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
Painting Light Swiss artist Conrad Jon Godly has led a remarkable life and found a style all his own. BRIAN NOONE traces his creative path from celebrity photo shoots for European magazines to ponderous paintings that are finding a devoted following in Japan PHOTO MAURICE HAAS In Conrad Jon Godly’s first career, he spent each day trying to capture the impossible. Shooting for brands and publications across the globe for nearly two decades, his photographs hunted the ever-elusive glamour that defined the 1980s and 1990s. And then one day, after a particularly monotonous photo shoot in Milan, where he was then living, he was done. The session didn’t go poorly – it was a cover for GQ that earned rave reviews – but Godly felt empty, bored by the process. The thrill of the chase was gone. And instead of swallowing the ennui and finding ways to manage, Godly did what only the bravest of us do: he walked away entirely. Public acclaim and worldly success were not – and are not – his goals. He is more focused on realising the power of his subjects: churning with emotion and without clear antecedents, his paintings reach not towards the changeable glamour of the human world but towards the magnificent simplicity of the natural one. CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 63
