Behind The Artworks: Silver Relics - Generic (2019)

I started Silver Relics to function as an art project centered around the music, so it's been DIY since day 1. As soon as we decided on ‘Generic’ as the title of our debut release, I knew I had to create an original piece for the cover.

I already knew I was going to go with paint, but my biggest challenge was sorting out what ‘Generic’ looks like in the context of the record. It’s a snapshot of all the things that surround a life-changing move like uncertainty, excitement, urgency, and risk. A how-to on navigating the grey areas in your life through observation and acceleration.

What I love most about painting is that it helps me to stop thinking. It’s not about the outcome. The approach is entirely different than songwriting, in other words. It’s fast, simple and abstract. Actually, it’s always abstract. So when I was ready to paint the cover, I started without intent and sat on my kitchen floor with a roll of rug tape and a block of hand-cut wood I found lying around the kitchen.

As I painted, I came to a stopping point in my thoughts, which allowed me to realize some things. Skewed black & white parallel lines paired with the linear strip of red acrylics seemed to sum up a lot about how I felt while writing this record. It started to make more sense after dissecting it a bit more. Red and generic go well together. I took a few photos and sat with it for a while before sending it out to my team. We all agreed that this was the one we wanted to go with for the album cover.