That Is Real Moss On My Face. That Is Oatmeal And Dirt In My Hair

Did anybody ever explain to you who your character was?

They really didn’t. They said I was going to be a character called the bum, and it was going to be a bunch of special effects. But that is all real makeup. That is real moss on my face. That is oatmeal and dirt in my hair, and steel wool. They were gonna make a mask, but [Lynch] says, “No! I don’t want any of that. I want to see every bone structure, I want to see the green eyes.” So he had them put it on with a tweezer. It took over 12 hours.

 

Did David instruct you to do different expressions on different takes?

Oh, no. He had an idea of what he wanted. David was going over the facial expressions. I did a couple, and he’s sitting there with me, and he says, “No. Nothing like that at all.” And, ya know, David Lynch is really hot, and I’m looking at him all dreamy-eyed, and he says to me, “That’s it: the look, Bonnie!” So I get up and I do it behind the dumpster, and David says, “No, do what you did before.” And I said, “Well, it’s really easy when I do it with you, David.” So guess what? He did it with me. He stuck his head [out], and I came out and looked at him. So when I put out my head, I saw his face.

From ‘Mulholland Drive’s Evil Hobo Breaks Her Silencio’ By Kenny Herzog, an interview with Bonnie Aarons, published on Vulture, the New York entertainment news site on October 31 2014

The Bum is part of The Composite Witch. The Composite Witch is an ongoing survey of various witches or could be/would be witches, a recurring motif, which crop up in the artists work; the culmination of which form The Composite Witch.

Beatrice Lettice Boyle is interested in Shelley Duvall, bumper stickers, witches/hags, choosing fabric and the seam between things. Recent work has appropriated imagery from 18th century Shunsho woodblock prints, a 16th century painting of the crucifixion attributed to Bosch, 16th century Brueghel landscapes and Disney’s 1937 Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. In Boyle’s installations the references which span eras and hi/lo culture exist on a simultaneous plane.

Beatrice Lettice Boyle graduated from the Royal College of Art, MA Painting, in 2018, they currently live and work in london. Recent exhibitions include Nourishment, Guest Projects, London, 2019; Maenad, The Arcade Project, London, 2018; Jolene’s Unit, Thornton Le Dale Antique Centre, Yorkshire 2018; Les Mains Dans Les Poches, Pierre Poumet, Bordeaux 2018; Time Poor Dreamers, Cypher Space, Berlin, 2017