YOU AND ME AND EGO Artist statement written by Steven Dayvid McKellar It’s 4am Winter is on it’s way And it’s dark and cold outside The comings of a bacteria rain in the distance From the upstairs of the FH, I can see over the small houses The neighborhood is dead quiet And will remain so most of the day Not a lot of life in these streets An area of a small Kentucky river town where drugs are rampant and children (if seen or heard) speak with foul language and inherited distrust I feel like a maiden in a tower transmitting some lonely frequency Beep beep beep Silently It is very quiet here And the stairs leading down to the bottom floor create a moaning song arrangement as i descend But at the bottom lies all this paint and canvas and power tools and old bicycles parts and piled scaffolding and tall planks of wood leaned against the red brick walls tarps and wood ships on the concrete floor Along with dirt and hay And seeing all this My heart is singed with excitement and i put my headphones in I’m barely awake But i feel like I’m the only person alive And three hours could be three seconds And all of this could burn and be whittled down to a small pile of ash And in imagining this I could think of no greater manifestation bitches brew In a silent way On the streets The sound of it within a soft-dream mind is an avalanche in the head circular Perpetual Relentless Like pushing through a violent wind no destination in the thick of it where nature puts me Unmerciful toward circumstance and emotion Unceasing to our rules of comfort and conduct And Miles rages And i tumble and rage with him along with my guides who have ventured with me through all of it And the break when it comes and I step away is like life itself I have no idea what to think of it all Cause that, was never the purpose It was to exist in it Of it Eat it Drink it Puke and shit Collapse Get up Drop the mic Or the brush Or the trumpet And bow out And then, years later I was reunited with these works My mental and emotional state entirely different Seeing them again Spread out on the floor of my parents flat in Nashville It was like seeing old friends again Ones that are pretty new and unknown to you but your bond is that of brotherhood/sisterhood bonded over the fire of life’s intensity Like tour mates If you allow it, you will find yourself forever connected to the people you journeyed with One thing that isolation of that kind did to me It opened my subconscious more My conscious mind slowly realized that it wasn’t gonna be disturbed Phone off, no one i knew coming round And my subconscious followed suite eventually letting it sink that it was not gonna be interrupted if I sat and staired at a wall for three hours Truth is I was ..really confused at the time About relationships, identity and purpose And I had to walk through it It was a necessary wrestle About the Artist Steven Dayvid McKellar is a musician, painter, and poet from Cape Town, South Africa. After a 20-year music career, touring globally with his band, Civil Twilight, Steven began releasing his first solo records and returned to his roots in painting. As a child, he was trained in realism by his aunt and renowned South African artist Donna McKellar before finding community and creative outlets through music and poetry. In September 2022, Steven released ‘Nama,’ a textural and rhythmic exploration of his South African roots and identity. ‘Nama’ is a follow-up to two earlier musical releases, ‘Ethio’ and ‘Belleville Demos’—soon to be reissued. After a debut solo show of his early paintings in Nashville, TN, and a solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Nooit Ge Dacht, Steven has continued his exploration of both the mundane and the esoteric, stripping away layers of identity with You and Me and Ego.