Although most of my friends on Facebook and the like will be acquainted with it by now, here it is for your viewing pleasure-"This thing of Darkness, I acknowledge mine"
What to tell you about it-well, not only is it the last piece I painted, but it's the final piece in the entire series. I had intended 'He who dies, pays all debts" (and I apologize for the long titles, but you know-go tell it to Shakespeare) but I really wanted the arc to end on a high note, as well as it be something which could include Joseph Locke, William Blake and my cat Ronin.
With all that said, it's kind of a farewell to England, or the idea of England-a place that exists as an idea rather than tangible landmass. A topography of the mind, or at least its surrounding ocean if you will.
It'll be hung along it's sisters and brothers throughout September at Bash Contemporary.
Here I am, working on the beginning of the end, though still four short of that sum when all said and undone. Had wanted to be chronological about it, do each piece in sequence, tying the whole grand finale up in a neat bow. Then I hit a wall on the one before and apropos with all these blood moons, needed the salvation of retribution, as opposed to merely feeling like a madman chipping at a mountain with a toothpick.
What a caper this art thing is, like inclement weather eh?
It's at such times that I realize the paintings exist entirely on another plain to their earlier sketched counterparts, and looking backward is often like retracing a forgotten trail obscured by brush or at least a sable.
I realize I'm talking riddles, but the conversations I have in my head seldom make sense.
I suppose artists are just cryptologist's of their past.
I worked on another study today, for what I can only call my series of exploding muses. Fatigue prevents me from writing a detailed exposition on the why's and wherefores of these pieces, but suffice to say there's something of an expression of decaying beauty in there.
Sunday night and letting the sublime sedation of a grand days work flow over me.
Without getting too psycho wankery about it, I am never more transformed than when I'm painting well.
David Sylvian is on his third rotation, there's a cool air moving through the studio, I've got nothing clanking around in my periphery and my mind is lilting on a hammock between two palms on a beach in the pacific somewhere.
The dark just flows out of me, like its trickling down my fingertips and through my sable.
A week from the next show, and I'm feeling more than the burn of the heatwave. I've never been so completely immersed as an artist-living and breathing it for ten, to fourteen hours a day-have I been faking it all this time-I don't know!?!
With all these show's, one would hope I sell something. Something's got to give.
Really want to catch some exhibits downtown this weekend-Renzo at Alex Salazar's gallery for instance,maybe even feel some sun on my face.
Except the sun will have to wait-seven pieces to nail between now and September 26th delivery date-going to be a long hot summer. Here's a song to remind me of the summers of my youth when I had nothing else to worry about except chasing girls and expanding my record collection.
The entire day has been given over to this piece, which means I really am in no state of mind to be objective about it. If I like it in the morning, then it'll be on the wall at Thumbprint come Saturday-if not, I'll crack the fucker over my knee. I've painted as close to the nail as I could with this one. Given that this piece was primed innumerable times, had something else painted on it before it was abandoned, and primed again, the lack of any porous surface to cling to really hindered the wet on wet approach.
I don't fucking hate it right now, I'm just uncertain its at the stage where its finished.
Save for a few highlights,the larger scale version of 'Is there Life After Death' is virtually complete. The background took so much reworking before I was happy, but I'm so pleased I persevered because it's given it exactly the subtlety I was aiming for.
Unfortunately, I discovered that my fevered daubing had come at the cost of sending spatter onto some of my older pieces. The damage wasn't irreparable, but enough to make me mindful that I need to find a better storage solution in my studio, than just mounting them against the wall.
I began the full scale of 'Disambiguous Foresight' today, which is rough and ready, but coming along nicely. The weather again has been atrocious, so it was freezing with the windows open, but the fumes from the turps and oil became so noxious that I am getting headaches and needed the ventilation.
After some reflection, I felt the title for this piece is The Valley-which is from the 23rd psalm-'though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...' which was something I was taught to say every morning, even before I could write.
Here are the latest working progressions, along with detail and preliminary working drawing.
In between mowing and weeding, I grew something of my own.
It's really coming along, although there were moments yesterday when I wanted to abandon the piece, since the scale of producing something that small, belied the process, plus I'm still feeling beholden to the uniform message of my current series, and not wanting to jar the equanimity too much.
I'm very happy I persevered anyway, the piece is meant to be an avatar-a representative of my other self within the confines of another plane called Hive land. I'm really looking forward to having it completed this evening.
I was looking forward to a lie in, but the furry little dictator had plans to take over the world at seven this morning.Here's my moggie- Pepper,using me as her human matress, whilst I was trying to work the other night. We are all minions, planted here for her ultimate comfort and convenience.
I'm combining my time between several projects at the moment, one particularly which is exciting as hell. I've been asked to contribute a new themed piece for a book compilation, which will also go on display at The Hive for their 4 year anniversary show. I'm tremendously happy with the first etchings, and chomping at the bit to let the paint fly.
'Retribution' is coming along nicely too, and again I'm fired up to see the piece in its finished glory. The all seeing eye follows me around my studio-its a little disconcerting. One thing that I have been neglecting is my side project-my reinterpretation of Dickens Xmas Carol, and I'm wanting to revisit that soon. I read that Robert Zemeckis is reworking a Polar Express style version with Jim Carey, and so I'm feeling a little competition. My version of course is more akin to Franz Kafka, than Mickey Mouse. Perhaps with all that in mind, its no bad thing that I have a furry little alarmclock.
The piece continues to evolve, taking on new facets of meaning with each stroke. It's something I'm struggling with, because I'm not wanting to compromise too much the equanimity of the minimalist approach. My temptation to layer on the baroque symbolism in the past is something I'm at pains to avoid. I see far more immediacy these days, in the most simple forms and iconography.
With the paint still thick and glistening on the canvas and the turpentine heady in the air, I began another piece which I'm calling 'Retribution'. In the most simplest terms, its a study of war in the name of religion.I'm using a childs eye for reference, as I think a smiting deity, always makes me think of a petulant brat throwing a tantrum.
I had intended to post more wip's, but my camera went wayward following a live painting event. For whomever discovered it, those final pictures will garner such delights as an exquisite half naked young female, being body painted like some Gigeresque extra. I kid you not.
So, in between side projects, a bout of flu in which I caught up my Netflix and the entire first season of Weeds, and some sweat time at the gym, I've been tickling away at the new piece.
Provisionally entitled it-'Sacramenstrual.'-thanks to my new digital camera, you can see how its developing. There's still a ways to go with some glazing and finnesse, but for the most part, conceptually my intent is there.
Its been something like twenty five years since Martin died-hard to believe sometimes-I still see his face so clearly. Maybe its getting older, but he's been in my thoughts a lot of late. I was seventeen, maybe eighteen on what was known as a 'Youth Training scheme' in those days, and Martin headed the design dept. I guess he recognized some modicum of talent in me then, and it quickly became one of those things of mentor and student. He introduced me to things like Dada and Pop Art, and a set of skills and dictum's that still stand me in good stead today.
He was also a remarkable artist in his own right, producing a series of silk screened images, that had a foot somewhere between Fauvism and photography. He possessed an incredibly dry surreal wit too, which would spill over into projects like painting over sized crisp packets that he had blown up on an old OHP.I recall hours of laughter, and we became firm friends, outside the class.He was 29 when he died in that old blue mini of his from France, which he had customized with red tape. Out of all the friends that I've lost over the years, the shock of his death was the most visceral,I guess because it was so sudden and unexpected,and at the time I dealt with it by mythologizing his death, stupidly, naively casting him as my Carlos Casagemas, but his passing was fundemental to me, and I really miss him sometimes. Last year, I tried to deal with it, the way I deal with everything-through paint-and had the idea of producing a hommage triptych, which I'd call 'Mentors'-I never got past the first piece(I'd still like to) -but the piece here called simply 'Martin' is the result.
Without a hint of irony, my wife and I spent the first day of 2009 in Tombstone. An extraordinary raw place-which left an undefinable mark on me-I shall be making a full picture post as time presents.
With the show looming however, I wanted very much to display the latest progression of the piece- that I'm hoping (wet paint being the biggest factor) to debut at the Ruby Room this Thursday.
Its odd to see the thought processes evolve on the canvas as I go-what began as a fairly pedestrian exposition on sex, death and the religious interplay between the two, has developed into a paradox of imagery: the veneration of the virgin, the symbolic sharing of blood during the sacrament, the aversion to menstruation in some religious cultures, the curtains of the confessional booth, the curtains of Amsterdam, the curtain of blood, the female sex as a symbol of life, the skull as a symbol of death, the whole life, death and resurrection show.
I'm fairly content with how its progressing,but as is always the case with my work, wish I had more time. I'll post final progressions this evening.
I guess I'm as heady as any man would be, having studied a picture of female pubenda for a duration-though any frustrations are borne from the snail-paced process of layering with oils.It's something else though-the sensual scent of turpentine and linceed, the smooth malleability of lush greens, ochres, crimsons and flesh white, the acid flow of pinot sliding down your throat...you learn to take your time, as in all things-better to savour the sensation. My browser static for hours on the incredible yardstick of Jenny Saville (imo the last great figurative artist of our time), I lost myself and my sable, in the beautiful fragility of a hipbone pushed against translucent skin.
Tonight that feels like all their needs to ever be.
Its odd how fickle, my creative bipolarity is. What had begun as a fairly didactic commentary on the Bush legacy, has diverged onto a purely pedestrian path entirely. I tried working the paint, but the original message felt ham-fistedly half baked-a little too satirical perhaps. So I painted over the piece, and ran with another bug in my head (and in my bed)-that of sex/life and death. You can see the beginnings of a female torso in one of eye sockets, and I'll be working the piece right up until the show at the Ruby Room on the 8th.
Currently nestling on my Easel, is a new skull piece, which I began at the recent live painting event at the Ruby Room in Hillcrest. A sort of comment on the moral abyss that has been the Bush/Cheney years, its inception was accompanied by some throbbing techno beat, and judging from the glasses lined on the tray-a bevvy of ales.
Only possessors of a rotoscope,and some 3d glasses, will be able to fully benefit from seing the scrappy beginnings in the skewed angle of this photo, but I was mightily appreciative of the collected throng that gathered around the stage throughout the night, and stayed the distance to watch-I almost felt like a rock star for about one whole minute, and should learn to tap dance or something for the next one.
Precluding online shopping and the odd social gathering this week, I'm hoping to tickle the surface on this piece some more, so I'll post progressions soon.
