Healter Skelter featured in Real Crime magazine

Almost four years on from it’s inception, the Man/son series is still seeding its way into sidebar press. That the work was almost entirely neglected and ignored by all the usual suspects upon my exhibition’s release, says more about the status quo of the ‘art arbiters’ (or artbiters for short), than it does about public taste.

Certainly, it’s feature in John Borowski’s documentary, Serial Killer Culture on Netflix, afforded it a second life and a continued legion of new fans- which I am entirely grateful for.

Which is why I am delighted that John has an interview talking about all his films in this months Real Crime magazine, which is also illustrated by one of the pivotal pieces from the series-Healter Skelter.

The magazine goes on sale in Barnes and Nobel stores from December 17th-go on, spill someones eggnog when they open their Christmas stocking.

Healter Skelter by David Van Gough

"When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again."

The twists and turns of Helter Skelter, led Bugolosi into the hall of mirrors, one which he saw himself reflected,forging a lucrative new career writing the most successful 'true' crime fiction novel ever. 

Helter Skelter-or Healter Skelter as it was written in blood on La Bianca's Freezer, a killer's catchphrase to hang with the shopping lists, postcards and fridge magnets.

"Listen" asks Bugolosi cupping his ear to the ground...Intoned in McCartneys raw vocals, in the shredding guitars, was the Devil unleashed? 
Was he? 
Was this song Charlies Catcher in the Rye, an inferno of annihilation embedded in-between the first note and Ringo's blistered fingers, composed to awaken the Mansonian candidate.  

Helter Skelter coming down.

He(a)lter Skelter-recapitulated. 
Easter Hell Trek
Hell retake rest
Lethal Seer Trek  
You begin to sound like Bugolosi.

And yet...and yet,at the base of the downward spiral,in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Laurel Canyon, echoed in the coyote howls of Death valley, or in the hollow of native Indian bones beneath, or scrawled in the bloody epiphets of  victims blood, lies something dormant. A specter that stains the ether beyond the hallucinogenic haze. A dark totem constructed of ritual murder, ancient orders and corrupt organizations.

And when I get to the bottom there is her-Sharon Tate, the disfigured goddess, eternal mother of the stars,leading me back to the top again, the questions swirling as I go around and around the serpent again to the tail,stoking the fires of hell.

The hell of Helter Skelter.



The Man/son show runs from the 1st-31st October at Hyaena Gallery, Burbank CA. Opening 6th October 8pm-12am

Hell to Skelter

It peaked 106° here on Friday, at least outside-in the studio I've been running a fever-a temperature akin to the lava flow of a volcano on the surface of Mercury. I've been living, eating and breathing the work. 

I wake up and go to sleep with it percolating in my brain, to the point were I've lost all objectivity on whether what I am doing is good anymore. I look at the work lined up at various stages of finish and I think it is-at least I hope it is-for Sharon Tate at least. 

A good friend in a similar storm, said something like that in such circumstances, one should supplant the concept for any finnesse, and as much as I try to remind myself that I am trying to accomplish in a month, something that should have taken me ten, it niggles at me as much as the nest of ants that I stem around the sugar bowl, daily.

Press release goes out tomorrow, I believe, a week to deadline and all will be revealed. In the meantime above is another detail teaser of the Healter Skelter piece.

Livin devil may care...painting detail of Helter Skelter by David Van Gough

It's a sneak peak wip for what will be the pivotal 'Healter Skelter' piece for Octobers show, and at times it's felt I'm on a downward spiral.

I wonder if I shall ever feel adequately prepared 'enough' for the work I am undertaking? I mean the hours of research, the contemplations,the journaling, the nest of snakes the understanding unleashes. From book to canvas, Utah to Vegas.... and talk about juxtapositions.

And so it was, another brief sojourn, this time to visit my son who is there this week with his girlfriends family.

I was prepared for the heat, but not the parable of literal Hades manifest there. In my readings and writings and questing for my mission for the Man/Son series, I've developed a theory called sinister architecture, which you can attribute psychically or geographically, depending on your side of the fence (or defense), but in Vegas it's there, so blatant and balls out as to be blase-a caricature of Babylon, a eulogy of self aggrandized American myth with deities, demons and gargoyles bought wholesale, sitting like guardians atop an abyss of excess, whilst a Black pyramid ( the hotel Luxor named after its counterpart and glorious city of God Amon-Ra in Egypt) shines a single slivering beacon into the pliant sky, like a temple of the Golden Dawn. 

 It's there when you realize the will to the spectacle, the council of magi that must of requisitioned it all, because look beneath the surface at the pantheon of occultist reference and reverence,  Vegas isn't just the pretentious child of gangsters, investors,accountants, architects and artists, its the mindset of dark understanding.

Perhaps that's what my study and research has given me-as unwashed and often callow as I feel on this journey down the rarebit hole I've dug for myself-my mind and eyes and minds-eye are open as never before,  attempting to articulate in paint.