Artist Harry Mould gains Twitter recognition after viral Celentano tweet — Muse Factory
An Edinburgh painter learns the fame of Italian megastar Adriano Celentano in a comedy of fortunate circumstances.
Like the lyrics of Marry Poppins’ “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” the name of Adriano Celentano’s 1972 hit single, is a nonsensical word. To an English speaker, this is obvious, but when you put together catchy rhythms, a killer ballet, and a fake American accent, “Prisencolinensinainciusol” starts to sound a little bit like English, and that is the point.
On November 26, 2020, Edinburgh-based artist Harry Mould posted the following tweet, highlighting Celentano and wife Claudia Mori’s music video for the single.
As Mould mentioned in her tweet, Celentano correctly assumed that a song, even without meaningful lyrics, would become a hit if it sounded enough like English to an Italian audience. Of course, the production quality of the music video itself, with a full dance ensemble and synchronized choreography reminiscent of Busby Berkeley, couldn’t have hurt.
“I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, since I like American slang — which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than to sing in Italian — I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn’t mean anything,” Celentano told NPR’s Guy Raz in a November 2012 segment of All Things Considered.
Since posting the original tweet just days ago, it gained over 5 million views, 16,000 retweets, and 193,000 likes. The story is now making the rounds in media, with both American and Italian news sources asking Mould for commentary.
To this day, Celentano remains an icon of Italian music, famous not only in his home country but across Europe and parts of Asia. During the Soviet period, when American media was hard to come by, Soviet citizens became enamoured with European superstars like Celentano. In a statement to Muse Factory, Mould commented that many from the various countries of the former Soviet Union — including Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and others — reached out to comment on their adoration for Celentano’s music.
“I’ve had lots of people reach out from there (the former USSR) to express what a huge impact he had on them!” Mould stated.
Outside of her Twitter fame, Mould is an artist and Press & PR Manager and EDI (equality, diversity and inclusivity) Officer at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company in Edinburgh, Scotland.
“I work in theatre and am passionate about inclusive accessibility in the arts, but increasingly my job is painting — I do a lot of commissions!” Mould said.
Two of her commissions are featured above. Her works are bright, eye-catching, two-dimensional pieces with symbols representing the titular historical figures. Sunflowers, ginger facial hair, and a bandage are the elements chosen in Mould’s painting of Vincent Van Gogh, the subject’s sad sunken eyes gazing down beyond the borders of the painting. In the Frida Kahlo portrait, Mould exaggerated Kahlo’s iconic thick unibrow, elongated her face, and tinted Kahlo’s cheeks with rouge. Kahlo’s hair is adorned in a vibrant bouquet of flowers — daisies, carnations, violets.
Many of her works can be described as whimsical, single-subject portraits, spotlighting famous icons of history, though works such as The Vegetarian Apprentice show Mould experimenting with other ways to frame her stories. When asked about the meaning behind the work, Mould expressed that it was an exploration of the idea of family inheritance, but also a subject which allowed her to add macabre elements to her quirky style.
“There’s a very old shop near where I live that used to be a family run butchers, which I walk passed fairly regularly, and it got me thinking about what it would be like to inherit a family business that you don’t want to be a part of,” Mould said. “I’d been keen to paint a butcher for a while, mostly because I love painting blood spatters. One of my first paintings was a surgeon covered in blood, which is funny considering I’m a bit squeamish.”
Even before the Celentano tweet took off, Mould used social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram to connect with her growing fanbase. In addition to commissions, Mould creates characters of her own, which are shown below. Like Van Gogh and Kahlo above, these characters come with their own symbols — the moustachioed Henrik with his foliage-growing eyepatch, Lydia with the Ostrich hat, and Clem wrapped in a blood-spattered bandage and flowers.
“I occasionally do call-outs on Instagram, asking followers to suggest names for my paintings,” Mould said. “That’s how both Henrik and Clem were named, actually.”
Her paintings can be found on Instagram @Harryisnthome.
Valeriya “Lera” Nakshun is the Founder and Editor of Muse Factory. She’s also a freelance culture writer and community organizer whose work focuses on Eurasia, the Middle East, and the underrepresented cultures of those regions. A naturalized American citizen, she is interested in all things art, multiculturalism, migration, and the spaces in between.
She currently works as a Marketing Specialist for the Strategic Partnership’s Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Connect with her on Twitter @Lerachkajan
Originally published at https://musefactorymag.com on November 30, 2020.
