Fallout

“How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence” 

Russians- Sting

It’s that time of year again, the feast of samhain, the witching hour resurrection of spirits and classic horror video nasties on DVD.

I’m reminded of the time back in the early 80’s, when a psychological horror of a different kind consumed the metaphysical airwaves.

Back then, between ads for chocolate digestives and Danger Mouse, you could look forward to public information broadcasts informing you what to do in the event of a nuclear blast.

By the same guy who did voice overs for Barrett homes no less.




While the transmission of Threads in ’84, dismissed any hope that sanctuary could be sought in a cupboard under the stairs, it did instill the kind of paralyzing terror that would come to dwarf all the cheap thrills of late night Halloween horror.



I have youthful levity to thank for lessening the full gravity of days when bombing drills, meant my classmates and I  would have to hide under our desks.

But there was no escape, because it permeated culturally, everything steadfastly preparing us for annihilation, because even the our record collections echoed sirens songs for the end times. Everyone from Prince’s infectious carrion call to Party like its 1999 as a defiant final act of hedonism, through Frankie Goes to Hollywood-Two Tribes which adopted the air raid siren from public information broadcast as it’s opening salvo.*

By the time warnings about the radioactive clouds from Chernobyl’s liquefying core, had settled over European pastures, nothing could mollify the terrible forebodings of the ultimate zero sum game.

There’s some of that sense of dread in this latest work I feel, reanimated in an era assailed by the toxic unraveling of a deranged mind,trigger finger poised over the final reset button, and venerated by a host of pious followers, rapture ravenous for the vindication that might be wrought from total annihilation.

As I said in a post back in 2017-we are living “the consequence of longing for a period when things were purportedly ‘great’.

Because along with the desire to relive all the illusory days of maga-nificence ,with it’s bargain basement but equally dementia addled Reagan, come all that era’s terrible distemper’s. The past is littered with as much gore as it is glory, and like the my favorite horror story-Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein-reanimating the dead, can only ever bring with it the bitter stench of the grave.

*In writing this post, I was both nostalgic and a little alarmed recalling the chart fare I listened to of the period. The list could be compiled to make an End of the world party collection.

Prince-Party Like it’s 1999
OMD-Enola Gay
Alphaville-Forever Young
Ultravox-Dancing with tears in my eyes
Nena-99 Luftballons
Heaven 17-Lets all Make a Bomb
Billy Bragg-Between the Wars
Frankie Goes to Hollywood-Two Tribes
Kate Bush-Breathing Sisters of Mercy-Dominion/Mother Russia
Morrissey-Everyday is like Sunday
Scorpions-Winds of Change
The Clash-London Calling
David Bowie-When the Wind Blows
Sting-Russians
Peter Gabriel-Games without Frontiers
Duran Duran-Planet Earth
Mike and the Mechanics-Silent Running
The Fixx-Stand or Fall
Men at Work-Overkill

For your listening/watching pleasure, I’ve compiled the full list on YouTube:

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

Notes from an Easel-liberating death from religion

Getting so close with this piece.
Recent postings of its progress on Facebook have drawn wrong comparisons with the 'Don't Wait' slogan adopted by Christian bumper stickers and such. I honestly had no idea about their use of the image until very recently.

Like I said when I first contemplated painting it, it was an image which I'd conjured up myself, long before falling upon the old 18th century woodcut. To my mind, the image represents a hollow existence in servitude of death more than anything else. In a sense I'm liberating it from religion.

Save some small tweaks, the piece is done.


Have the no small task of dividing my collection for the upcoming shows in October. I'm still some ways from completing all the pieces I have in mind too.

Today I have to drop off two works plus easels at the Alex Salazar show, before completing the collaboration with Mark Jesinoski for Saturdays showcase.

No rest for the wicked as my old nan used to say.

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-part 65-Life after Death?

In light of the tragedy that continues to unfold in Haiti, it's difficult to be so trite as to post anything substantive from the warm comfortable safety of a roof over ones head. Which is why it is so abhorrent that a supposed holy man, should leap on such a devastating catastrophe, as a grotesque opportunity to admonish an entire nation with what amounts to an underhand, superstitious, poisoned, racial barb.
I hope at the end of your miserable, self righteous existence, that you get to meet the smiting, bigoted, Old Testament monster you so revere Mister Robertson.

There are however, positive ways to contribute something other than ones own despicable agenda, Paypal and Ebay are fund raising for Save the Children, and unlike the bloated church coffers, anything you donate is taxable:

Make a Donation Here
Perhaps enlivened by the vitriol, I have produced what I think is one of my strongest pieces to date. I had intended to put it on Ebay, since its a preliminary comp to a larger scale for the show in October, but if there is room in the exhibit, I'd like to include it this Saturday.

Notes from an Easel-56-Death of Winter

Brushes are growing threadbare again, and a journey to the art store to replenish my fine sables is one of the few things that hinge on me completing the piece in time for the solstice. I find myself in that plateau place where my hunger to progress to the next piece is making the completion of this one feel like an epic struggle.

Unrelatedly related, I read something artist Terry Rodgers said in this months Juxtapoz, about the difference between American and European audiences being that the latter are a little more comfortable with difficult subject matter. Speaking of Americans he says that they 'live in an isolated fairyland and are subjected to amazing religious-based fantasies.' I can concur, although his penchant for painting large photo realistic scenes of debauchery set his mettle a little more in the camp of extreme than my own, it's something I've contemplated a lot of late. For all the peer back slappery I enjoy, I am still not commercially in favor here. It seems all about becoming a name and a gimmick, and perhaps it being the season, I am feeling the draw of Europe because of chronic homesickness, but I do imagine that my art would sit more comfortably in a gallery in say-Vladivostok-than Malibu. The grasp of the human condition is simply surfeit here, the enduring grasp is for the superficial, the contrivance of emotion without feeling-that thing of being constantly connected through Twitter without ever connecting, the paranoid narcissistic horror of aging annihilated by the bronzed skin pulled back across every botoxed cheekbone.

I get lost in the romantic notion of living and working in a studio loft in Berlin or Amsterdam, and wonder if I could make more of a living from my art, in a place where the ravages of suffering are written in the pockmarks and shrapnel pits of the landscape.

Unrelated, I had to laugh today when I read about a progressive church (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) in New Zealand, whose vainglorious attempts to appeal with the unholy masses, extended to a billboard that has the church up in arms (when aren't they) and would give Ron English a run for his money:

Something for the weekend-part two

5. The Thumbprint gallery, here in San Diego shall be opening a group show on the 19th September which is a perfect showcase for my work, entitled Faith and Formulas. Doors open at 7pm to 12am, at 3925 Ohio St, San Diego, CA 92104

6. Whilst my daughter was in town, we had the opportunity of seing an exhibit of Richard Avedons work, entitled Portraits of Power, which was still showing at the Museum of Art in Balboa Park, here in San Diego,up until a week ago.
A former photographer for the New Yorker, mostly known for his high society and movie start portraits, the exhibit centered largely around his political work of the sixties and seventies, utilizing portraits of political benefactors and activists juxtaposed alongside ordinary citizens, to express the moral, class and racial chasm that still exists within American society.


Its a very powerful collection, which stays with you long afterwards, and may be touring to a different city, but is well worth the admission fee should you find it opening in your locale.
7.Accompanying me daily on my artistic travels, are my cats, who have taken to squatting in my studio and using it as their post catnip chill out zone.

Notes from an easel-work in progress-the Valley stage two by David Gough

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.

Artifact-tales of an Antiquarian-Gods and Monsters

Completed in the fall of 2004, Gods and Monsters was very much informed by more than a dabble with dark magiks and having read too many Dennis Wheatley novels as a teenager. Still living in the UK at the time, and having dallied briefly with a coven in places called Thornton Hough, I was immersed in the Crowley Tarot, John Fowles the Magus, Colin Wilson,The Mysteries, Eastern mysticism, occasional headonistic weekends in Amsterdam and a late night tryst that led me down a very solipsistic, self destructive path indeed.

In all manner of ways, Gods and Monsters was trying to make sense of it all, examining if their were pre-ordained forces and wisdoms at play, such as astrological motifs, religious rites and the Arcana, or if it was merely arcane, and influenced by ones own psychosis,the dirge and the vampires, we surround ourself with during the unravelling of daily existence.

Elicited as part of my 'Dream Orphans' series, and like most of my works of the period-sold on Ebay for a song-the piece has since become notable for its inclusion on the cover of Peter J Carrols 'The Apophenian' as well as being the theme and title for my retrospective book.


Painted in a week with Acrylics, I'm still very proud of it, its an important work, and continues to be one of my most sought after pieces at shows.

Signed reproduction prints of Gods and Monsters are available from my website HERE.

Sacramenstrual-work in progress by David Gough

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.

Notes from an easel part three-sex and death working title

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.