The Origin of Life

“…some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.”

H.P.Lovecraft

Plaster,Polymer clay, straw and paint, good ingredients for life right there I think, better than a clutch of mud and ashes, certainly. A love of the craft then for Lovecraft, some Cthuloid rising from the meta ganglion of the primal subconscious, just in time for Dia de los Muertos and Samhain.

So in the spirit of spirits, La Bodega is having it’s third annual showcase this weekend-Saturday 24th, whence there will be a galleria full of dead cases and head cases.

Bring out yer dead.

Mourning Tea-new still life study by David Gough

Mourning Tea
11" x 14"
Acrylic on Canvas

Still life isn't something I ever felt a calling toward, but it doesn't hurt to occasionally stretch other muscles.

This quick study started out as an idea I had for something I wanted to ruminate on between the pages of my forthcoming book-Dead/Ends.
It's much better served I think as a quick study, which I've done in a semi-impressionist style for incongruity, but it deals with that thing we English have of procuring tea whenever there is news of a bereavement. Having been the recipient of such news and the obligatory brew, its always struck me as an odd juxtaposition-the cold chill of mortality served with a hot, sweet comfort of a tea in a delicate china cup-the forced civility of familiar rituals and table etiquette over human frailty and any potential social discomfort.

For such occasions, I've oft been tempted to craft a teapot from an skull, of course the various cracks and crevices of the dome would have to be plumbed to avoid leakage, but there the pot would sit amongst the doilies and china, grinning like....well death.

Here however-a black kettle will have to suffice-(because of course its a pot calling a...you got it), and as well as being a nod to my own artistic legacy, the skull having fallen (and oh how I delight in little symbolic gestures like that) there's that whole thing of a 'watched pot never boils', which could be as much about my artistic fortunes as anything.

And if there's any doubt sill left about my intent for this piece, there's the discarded pine cone, spent of its seed and looking for all the world like a lumpen, shriveled turd, either casting a reflection or staining the virgin white of the table cloth, depending on your preference.

Not bad for a mornings work.

notes from an easel-death complex-new painting by David Gough

It's been noted before that I have something of a death complex.
Here it is then.

It expresses the way in which the mind creates a myriad maze of rationale for a possible afterlife, one which is filled with blind alleyways, wrong turns and endless wanderings. I thought I was done with the skulls to be honest, but this one presented itself in that momentary lapse between waking and sleeping, and burned itself into my minds eye. I really would like to follow through and repaint it in oil.
Though, if there were such things as miracles, then I'd consider it a manna from heaven, that I'm able to produce anything at the moment.

At a time when I need complete contemplation and total tranquility, the amount of distraction I have had to contend with of late, is beyond the pale.

I'd Entertain the real possibility of hauling my entire studio to some remote campsite, and live out of a tent for a few weeks, except the heatwave is in full miserable flow.

I anticipate a lot of late nights ahead of me.

Notes from an Easel-Full Steam, A Head

'Full Steam, A Head'
11" x 14
Acrylic on Canvas

I'm pretty pleased with the way this one turned out-I had toyed with the idea of approaching it as a sepia ink drawing on some form of mottled surface, and still may do that at some juncture.

The painted version is raw and meticulous and grimy, and you can almost smell the sulfur.
It has a definite nod to some of the Biodegradable pieces I was doing some years ago, and reminds me a lot of the docklands of Liverpool, but it draws its tenet from the notion of the skull as vessel brimming with an architectural maze spilling toxic pollution.

Its available for $300.