Aleister (Prima) Crowley & the artists indomitable spirit

8″ x 11″
oil on canvas

So the great beast himself, knocked out so to speak- Alla Prima- in a few hours . Not that I’m an acolyte you understand. Even Bowie stated something along the lines that one better know their Latin inside out, if one wants to be a Crowleyite.
No, what I liked about the photo it was taken from, was that indomitable spirit, defiant in the wake of decrepitude and darkness, the last embers of a pipe hanging limply over that jutting chin. It was also a nice way to whet my whistle and make a bloody mess before getting down to the meaty stuff-something I’ve missed quite honestly since the days when I was doing author portraits before gritting my teeth through the Man/son series.

It loosens the arm you see, making you less inclined to over finicking.

At any rate, if the main course has seemed slower to get off the ground this year, it’s only because of  group exhibits and the ever prevailing need to hustle. Except to say, I shall be making an announcement shortly in regards of my next solo show- Paradiso’s Fall. So that drip is about to become a flood.

Speaking of indomitable spirits, someone I was honored to be introduced to by my artist friend Evgeniya Golik this past weekend was the artist, sculptor, architect and philanthropist James Hubbell. Nestled sedately in the hills of Santa Ysabel and a short ride from my own studio, his property is like a secret enclave that I can only describe as a kind of collusion of Hobbiton, with Art Nouveau, and Gaudian flourishes.

Actually, that doesn’t even begin to do it justice, its organic, metaphysical, psychedelic, just really odd, but what it is, is an awe inspiring embodiment of a lifetimes work, from an artist who has clearly lived, breathed and made a gallery of his entire existence since laying roots there in 1958.

Being escorted through building after building, each idiosyncratic in their singularity, illuminated with dappled stained glass and intricate allegorical mosaics, with studios filled to the brim with sculptures, paintings and drawings was utterly staggering in its prolific accomplishment. One could barely fathom it being the product of ten lifetimes, let alone one. That he had to rebuild four of the buildings following a brush fire in 2004 makes it all the more astonishing.

Now in his 80’s, he shows no sign of slowing down, and on a personal note, it was a welcome and humbling reminder that age need not dull the blade. That the life of the artist is at his or her best, when the very will, the mere act to create, supplants any other constraint. Material, imagined or otherwise.

You can learn more about this incredible man or about his foundation (and perhaps donate) from the following links:

JAMES HUBBELL

ILLAN LAEL FOUNDATION

On a not insignificant and final note, I have my dear friend and fellow artist Evgeniya Golik to thank for the invitation to meet James.

“Broken Glass Melody” – 10″ x 10″ – Acrylic, metallic ink pen on wood panel – $400

As you can see, she is a tremendous artist who having lived through Perestroika, manifests the indomitable spirit of the artist in her own right-and I’ll write more about Evgeniya in another post, but for the time being you can see (or purchase) her beautiful exquisite art from the following:

EVGOLA

Ziggy Stardust painted portrait by David Gough

So Ziggy is forty,hard to believe for anyone who was there when the Starman first played guitar.

I would have only been five years-too young to have a 'lectric eye, pick him up on channel two, between a wave of phase, but in another five his creators message and music would become all encompassing. 

It's been pretty much that way ever since. Of course, Low is and shall always be my album of choice, but it does no harm to recall the wild mutation that came before. Love on ya.

Kurt Vonnegut-new painted portrait by David Gough

"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber."

Slaughterhouse-Five

Continuing duties on the new series-set as it is as a sort of Pilgrims Progress in none linear time and space-I was reminded of of one of my favorite books Slaughterhouse-Five, and was motivated to paint this portrait of Kurt in a couple of hours the other day.  

After the meticulousness of working in graphite the past month, the rawness of oil was refreshing.

And so it goes.

Joseph Conrad-heart of darkness-painted portrait by David Gough

"Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line."

Joseph Conrad

After reading about a recent one off production of Heart of Darkness, based on the lost screenplay by Orson Wells, I took a short break from my own dark imaginings to paint this in a few hours today-a portrait of Joseph Conrad.Of course, my generation were introduced to his book through Coppola's version-'Apocalypse Now',making his literature culturally incongruous (perfectly exemplified in Gary Oldmans gritty Nil by Mouth.) in that it encouraged legions of kids to pick up a book that wasn't already on the school curriculum, for the first time.

Anyway, with sketches for the new series still holding me hostage, it was rather nice to paint something that didn't require a great deal of effort or thought.

Kerouac

"Jack"
12" x 12"
Acrylic on canvas

To a certain generation-Kerouac is the one. For every aspiring writer or artist (although we had Gauguin) crippled with wanderlust from the paralyzing periphery of the every day, "On the road" was a bible manifesto.

Not that one can relate very much from a Liverpool back bedroom about road trips from Texas to Loredo-one would get as far as a Birmingham bus depot before becoming utterly disappointed.

Still one can dream.

Charles Bukowski portrait painting, by David Gough

"...Made crazy and sick by this,
Made violent,
Made inhuman,
By this.
The heart is blackened..."

"Dinosauria, We" Charles Bukowski
Where have I been?

I've been unplugged from the relentless 'Fuck Yeah-America' and 'Obama still blows' since the news about Bin Laden broke on Sunday night.
As homesick as I'm feeling, it's no bad thing.

I wonder what old Hank Bukowski would have made of all the hoo haw.
Possibly he'd have procured some acerbic sleight or laconic bon mot about cowboy ideology, or perhaps he'd have just sacked off the whole sorry shit and gotten wasted at some seedy dive bar.

He'd have not taken to Twitter or Facebook however-most certainly not.
Anyway, I resurrected his incredible visage, that face that looks ravaged by shrapnel, that jawline that could blot out the sun, those eyes that narrow like razor slashes, and painted it in a few spare hours yesterday.

George Orwell

'Orwell'
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

George Orwell

So, George Orwell-soothsaying, scribe of totalitarianism, a harbinger of future assimilation-that eternal jackboot on the throat of the proletariat.

'Orwellian', has now become a vernacular as common as lobbing the stink bomb of Nazism, on any legislation or party one refutes (or should that be 'refudiates?')

It's all come to pass in one form or another of course- Doublethink, Newspeak,historical revisionism, peace through endless war with an unseen assailant-was he merely anticipating an endpoint, or did he unwittingly become the architect of a Bible for demagogues and tyrants to cherry pick from?

It doesn't matter, we'll never see his like again, the 'powers that be' would never allow it.

Samuel Beckett portrait by David Van Gough

11" x 14"
Acrylic on canvas

"Birth was the death of him"Samuel Beckett.

So another year. Ho Hum.

Should I be lucky enough to reach relative sagehood, I hope that I do so looking as cool as Samuel Beckett.
What a face-a veritable crumpled road map of life.
What a legacy-although truth be told I'm a little more partial to Joyce.
Each to his own.

I kept this one fast and loose, and it turned out all the better for it.
With a face like that, the rest was easy.

William Burroughs Portrait by David Van Gough

"Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact"
William S Burroughs

The Poe piece I produced around Halloween was so well received, that between completing the sculpture and working on my book, I thought I'd continue the theme in a few spare hours this afternoon.

So Bill Burroughs-agent provocateur extraordinaire-the minds eye projecting a living corpse,dandy in the underworld, smacked up and shacked up in some seedy insectoid-alien infected apartment, writing virulent, insane prose and re assembling it in a wild turkey fever.

The myth of the man is all the more compelling in that he left the kind of exquisite indelible stain on literature that even the sterility of a shiny new Kindle could not erase.
And then there is Naked Lunch- a murky descent into the grotesques of the mind and the psycho sexual horror of a homophobes, crab infested nightmare, more in keeping with a Surrealists manifesto than any Beat generations wanderlust.

Of course I went on to read Nova Express, Wild Boys, The Soft machine and all the others, but the mercurial oddness of that book has stayed with me, which is why Mr Mugwump is the subject of this latest portrait.

It's also notable in that he has always reminded me of my old friend-John Liddy.

Notes from an Easel- Tell Tale Art-portrait of Edgar Alan Poe by David Van Gough

"Poe"
6" x 9"
Acrylic on Board

Usually at this time of year, I am like the Crypt Keeper incarnate, thumbing through Vault of Horror back issues, or reliving my adolescence, ogling generous bosomed, lesbo-vamps from my Hammer DVD collections.This year, it's felt a bit stale if I'm honest.Lani has been busy conjuring a cornucopia of creepiness however, and so I've gotten off my act, and painted this yesterday.

Poe, of course is the master of mystery and macabre, the Raven alone would secure his permanence way beyond the footnotes of cultural obsolescence, except he also wrote amongst others, Pitt and the Pendulum, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Masque of the Red Death, the Black Cat and my personal favorite-The Tell Tale Heart.Perhaps syphilitic and loaded when he died, its hard not to caste him as the archetypal alcoholic scribe, sneering at the tragic barbs of life, and stumbling through muddy puddles in Maryland, but I daresay the reality is not as colorful.

It never is.

Here is Chuck Jones animated version of Tell Tale Heart, with the voice talents of James Mason-it's a fascinating, weird, little, piece, which has always had a huge influence on me-the art in cartoon certainly.