DAVIDGOUGHART

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Artifact-Tales of an Antiquarian-pulling the wings off faeries


If my series of mermaid paintings were a love sonnet to my wife, then the works that followed seemed a natural progression.

Bolstered by the brio of sales, and taking more than a leaf from the book of world domination-courtesy of my good friend Jasmine Becket Griffith, I repackaged my Urban Fairies as awkward, blitzed out-on-absinthe, little fae punkettes, too archaic for the modern world-prostituting themselves and their magiks to a society that had outgrown them.
Conceptually it was born from the brow of an X box-artistically, it was all very telling.


As in the piece-'Faeries do it better'-art had been relegated to the footnote of an alleyway wall.

The license deals followed*, and for a short time my thumb-tacked addition onto every angst ridden, emo's bedroom wall was assured, and words like integrity became replaced by words such as demographic.

Reinventing myself as a modern day Arthur Rackham with the Froud crowd, It became akin to pulling the wings from faeries, or at least-forging brass ones for my own back.

By the end of the whole wretched three years, I had been horribly shafted several times over by less reputable licensing companies, any reputation I had artistically was in tatters, and I had nothing but contempt for everything I had done.

Destiny-waiting for the wind to change- was exactly that, in the eternal waiting room of big breaks, I was starving for my turn.
I still am.



I retired the series in 05, with the aptly titled work-'Done'


Disillusioned, I retreated to the avant garde and the influences of my early years, to reconsider my next career move.
*To date-despite residual licenses,and those still making money from my work, I have received barely a cent, so should you find anything in stores with my name on that is not endorsed by myself-ie: figurines, journals, unsigned prints, T-shirts, cards, mugs, candles-etc... please do not buy it, I do not get royalty for any of it.

1 comment:

  1. There should be a sign on the road to that we all take on our journey to become successful independent artists. I think it should say "Beware frizzy headed blondes for they seek to suck the marrow from your bones."

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