Get off my Damned Back

” Organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”

Christopher Hitchens

11″ x 14″ -Ink on Aquarelle paper

This one arrived in a couple of hours-it wasn’t too hard really, spurred on as it was to filter the blanket noise, the ethersphere of hyperbole and outrage, the fist pumps, pontificates, patriotism and inevitable airstrikes.

So more blood, more death, more ire, business as usual, all to fill the coffers, pay the dues, stamp the passport to an unknown destination,hope for the price of life, all to abscond the pain of living,a buffer against the oldest fear, because only the other side speaks in extremes, right?

I like the immediacy of the drawing anyway, a black and white riposte to Dark ages, and you can see more of sketches by clicking the album HERE

Twenty four years separate us

With the self portrait currently consuming me, I thought this sketch was too irresistible a prospect not to do. Of course there's a part of me that balked at laying the cruel ravages of age bare on the slab for all to see, but the perverse side won out.

So 1988 to 2011.

Maybe I'll make it a decagonal thing-laugh in the face of old age.

Death and the Maiden drawing by David Van Gough

Death and the Maiden
9" x 9"
Felt tip pen on paper

The Death and the maiden motif has been one which has always fascinated me, so using Sharon Tate's likeness was going to be an obvious progression. Little did I know that Polanski titled one of his films in the same vein. Anyway, I produced this sketch using felt tip pens-something I used consistently when I was a child-so it gives the impression of observing the murders from quite a naive point of view.

I think it worked out quite well for a sketch.

Drawing Breath-art comission by David Gough for local Sexologist

Some last minute retouching on the erotic drawings before I deliver them later today.



Here they are in no particular order.

'Paradox'-11" x 17"-Graphite and acrylic wash on paper

'Palindrone'-11" x 17"-Graphite and acrylic wash on paper

'Osmosis'-11" x 17"-Graphite and acrylic wash on paper

I'm very pleased with the set, and at some juncture I may put them together as a series of limited edition prints. We'll see.



All being well, I should have some more good news to impart over the next few days, and as its the week that celebrates (or commiserates) another year older, I'll be posting a daily feature showcasing five things that influenced me growing up.

Drawing in Love-show at Mosaic gallery featuring David Van Gough

The Mosaic anniversary show is next week, so I spent the past week completing three sketches for it.
The show being two days short of Valentines, the theme is 'Drawing in Love' and here are my submissions.'Chimera Rising'
11" x 14" (approx)
Ink, Acrylic and pencil on paper
$150

Regular visitors to my blog, will know that this piece has already been through several incarnations, but until I completed this version I realized what was missing. I've had an aversion to putting wings on any of my muses for some time now, since the connotation with my old work is there, but then I thought that doing something I didn't want to do was as good a reason as any, so it followed.

Chimera of course was a fire breathing creature from Lycia, comprised of animals, and there is something compelling and enigmatic in her manifestation. Beautiful but deadly, sophisticated but primeval, Its that juxtaposition inherent in woman that can enchant man even to his own detriment. The cracks are merely reflections on a false idol.
'Palindrone'
11" x 17" (approx)
graphite and acrylic on paper
$250

Autonomy was the key to the conception of this one, and so its meaning didn't really reveal itself to me until I was almost complete. Certainly, its an overtly sexual piece, but its mired is in that transcendental moment of orgasm when the self becomes detached and fragmentary from time and space and yet there is that conjoining of the physical through the act itself, so becoming almost a third entity.
'Osmosis'
9" x 12" (approx)graphite and acrylic on paper
$125
Without being saccharine (when could one ever accuse my work of that) this was very much about how love is a unifying force, but also means the compromise of the individual as a possession. The arms could be all encompassing or suffocating depending on ones viewpoint and the merging of forms either a consolidation as a whole or the loss of the singular, which is why the figures are androgynous.

The show opens on the 12th February from five pm until 12am at Mosaic Gallery, 3422 30th North Park San Diego, CA 92104.