Here it is-11 of the projected 24 pieces for my show- Purgatorium - opening at
Bash Contemporary September 5th-October 5th, Artist reception 6th 6pm -
9pm-all inquiries to info@bashcontemporary.com, 
(415) 926-8573 www.bashcontemporary.com
Good Wombs Have Borne Bad Sons-oil on canvas
-48"x36" $3500
What's Past is Prologue-oil on canvas-48"x36" $4000
A Thousand Furlongs of Sea, For an Acre of Barren Land-oil on canvas-48"x36" $3500
The Dark and Backwards Abysm of Time- oil on canvas-48"x36" $4000
Brave New World-oil on canvas-48"x36" $3500
Misery acquaints man with strange bedfellows-oil on canvas-48"x36" $4500
So Lie There, My Art-oil on canvas-48"x36" $3000
Poor Worm, Thou Art Infected-oil on canvas-48"x36" $4000
Night Kept Chained Below-oil on canvas-48"x36" $4500
Space Have I to Lie in Such a Prison-oil on canvas
-48"x36" $4000
He That Dies Pays All Debts-oil on canvas
-48"x36" $5000
Purgatorium
"Hell is Empty and all the Devils are here"
The Tempest-William Shakespeare
In his forty-fifth Year, David Van Gough embarked upon a series which
would finally confront the daunting shadow cast by his most famous
ancestor, and the inevitable connotations of that surname.
Adopting the characterization of Vincent Van Gogh as martyr– and
recapitulating stanzas from Shakespeare's Tempest recast as themes of
life's metaphorical exile – Purgatorium (Latin for “the place in
between”) sets a chronological backdrop of re-imagined personal
biography from the desolate mire of his Liverpudlian upbringing to
imagined death and the shadowed here-after.
The series is Van
Gough's manifestation of the artist-as-alchemist via an exorcism of our
contemporary society that suppresses arcane secrets, the ancient craft,
the magical depths. The result is an epic parable of traumatic
realization and purification."
On the last leg, literally.
Eleven down, final canvas in progress.Hard to believe.
That's the penultimate piece above- 'Space enough have I, in such a prison'-which like the titles of all the paintings in the series-is a line from the Tempest.
Been watching umpteen adaptations, and the Derek Jarman one is still my favorite-like a Dorothea Tanning in chiaroscuro, it has Jack Birkett as Caliban, and a winsome Toyah as Miranda.
This is my version of Miranda...whats that? Looks like my wife? I won't have it - any resemblance to Lani is purely coincidental.
Actually, that's a lie, Lani is in all of the pieces, quite simply because whatever sun that has risen or set in the studio, it has done so with her blessing.
Never a hint of complaint, grievance, or resentment for that other bedfellow, for our muses are like mistresses that we spend our hours bewitched and infatuated by.
For all the "oohs" and "ahs" doled out for those concubines gazing from walls throughout history, the Art widows of the world are the true goddesses.
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.
A work in progress of the piece currently on my easel-the Sycorax manifest as three sisters, or if you like, Shakespeare, Chekhov and Weishaupt in tow.There's a dinner party right there, and as good a piecemeal for what I have on my plate right now.
I'm at the halfway point you see , the eye of the storm I suppose, the midway curse-too far to go back, the point of no return. I have Dali up the rear, because when it doubt, one of his crutches will always do-a bigger stick to beat me with. I'll save my thoughts on the mustachioed minstrel for another time.
You can't see, but the Sycorax is spewing a fetid,toxic, black river-a virulent paint slug warping and manifesting into a mishapen hound. Like the words and images that dog us throughout, it's something that's vexed me of late-the legacy of what I do, the cause and effect, the imprint on the ether. If any.
We are all sinister architects in one form or another.
Inspired and at the behest of a recent facebook post by my talented daughter-Emma-above is a stack of current obsessions feeding the artistic alchemy.
By virtue of abundance, it's not quite as diverse or impressive as Bowie's top 100 list of books, which appeared this week and which I was happy to note does include one of the tomes on my own current pile.
Depending on the canvas consuming me at the time, the list is generally interchangeable of course, and most of the books are digested purely for invocation, but as latitude and longitute into the geography of the new series, it's a pretty good GPS.
The list from top left is as follows:
Salvador Dali-50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship
Valazquez, the technique of genius by Jonathan Brown and Carmen Garrido
The Encyclopedia of Mythology by Arthur Cotterell
The PreRaphaelites by Trewin Copplestone
The Divine Comedy with Illustrations by Gustav Dore (translation by Henry W. Longfellow)
The complete works of Shakespeare
Images of Horror and Fantasy by Gert Schiff
Creepy presents Richard Corben-the definitive collection of the artist's work from Creepy and Eerie!
On Ugliness by Umberto Eco
Art of the Late Middle Ages by Hans H. Hofstatter
Van Gogh a self-portrait. Letters revealing his life as a painter selected by W.H.Auden
The Devil-the Archfiend in Art from the sixth to the sixteenth century by Luther Link
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri
The Secret Temple-Masons, Mysteries and the founding of America by Peter Levenda
Portrait of the Artist as ab young man and the Dubliners by James Joyce
Like you've never been away by Paul Trevor
