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

The underpainting of the screaming skull is really coming along-this heat is murder though-the room is heady with the smell of turpentine and oils.

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-Lani

The muse is eternally intertwined with the artists existence, the role of the model, more than a mere object of infatuation, but a rumination of melancholy, for a beauty that is forever fleeting and technically unattainable. It embodies all the vivaciousness of life through the imagination.

I have painted my wife-Lani,on multiple occasions-always recasting her as some mythical paean to the ethereal qualities of her beauty and my love for her.

The most successful of these pieces, I think was 'Secret Rendezvous' painted in 2005. My first ever piece painted in oils, it was steeped in the classical traditions of Pre Raphalite painting-and the enigmatic portraits of Elizabeth Siddal, whereupon Lani was Guinevere, returning from an assignation with her lover in the forest.
Her torn petticoat on bramble thorns alluded to some of the disapproval we were suffering over our relationship at the time.

Its a piece I'm still quite proud of, and I regret having sold it, as it captured something of a true essence of my wife's mystical beauty.

And Another Thing....Faux news

One of the most profound and disturbing things for me upon arriving here in the US for the first time, was observing the way in which prime time network news is relayed here. Tuning in to see what was going on in the world, revealed itself to be a veritable minefield of wry sarcastic opinion often served with a side order of the histrionic, presumptuous, deceptive, self righteous and fallible-depending on which side the network was batting for. Be it O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Comlbs or Olbermann-trying to swim through the sewage of muck-raking verbage, and soap box finger wagging, merely to make sense of it all,and discover some actual world news of the day,was akin to having my head encased in concrete.

Except it wasn't news relayed as factual, dry reportage, as it is in the UK-it was shouted with a shook fist, filtered through some scary party rally cry, where the fires are stoked for the viewers to eye each other suspiciously, and seeth and bait for blood through gritted teeth, and all the underlying fears of Mcarthyism are spewed through your cable, 24-7.

Is it any wonder then that in this twenty first century, that there are factions of such frightening extremes.

Now of course as a result of an erroneous comment that Glenn Beck made about Obama being a racist and hating all white people- his show is hemorrhaging advertisers. That's some splendid news for once-with a little further coercion, hopefully he will dig a hole big enough hole for himself to fall into.

Perhaps Beck and O'Reilly and their ilk, believe they are like Peter Finch in the excellent Sydney Lumet movie from 1976-Network-'Not going to stand for it, and Mad as hell'
Whilst I'm not adverse to the social order being shaken up a little from time to time-révolution-the context of that movie was unifying, not spitting bigotry, hellfire and damnation vitriol five nights a week.

At the end of the day, the doctrine of democratic free speech for all is one which I embrace , but if news is subjective, driven by agenda, opinion, and an allegiance politically or otherwise, then what you are left with is nothing less than a tenet of Orwells thought police.

Gough Medicine-School

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”
Neil Gaiman

Artifact-tales of an Antiquarian-Nightspirit

Right in the midst of my diversion to be a modern day Arthur Rackham, and having hitched my wagon firmly to the sepharic winged,I commenced Nightspirit in January 2005.

Inspired somewhat by Atkinson Grimshaw's 'Spirit of the night'-cross pollinated with the 'Temptation of St Anthony', by Flemish artist Matthias Grünewald, this dark little foray into things that go bump in the night-was I still believe my most successful incarnation in that vein during the period.


The subtext was a rather simple visual play on the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling- more specifically the lines...'IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs....IF you can dream - and not make dreams your master...'
In this case, I manifested a character or muse, of the Nightspirit- a metaphor for a kind of pied piper, a collector of the malaise and nightmares that vex in the witching hours. It was a lovely excuse to paint beasties, which as an artist I revel in, as well as imbuing all the little demons with personal fears. The monstrous flea for instance was directly lifted from John Donne's poem of the same name.
At the time, to get maximum dollar for my work, I was prefacing every piece with a highly finished line drawing, which also allowed me an opportunity to flesh out my ideas. You can see differences in the characterisations. I should also note, that my wife designed the beautiful costume for this piece.

If nothing else, this work is remarkable in that its one of the few pieces I ever did, that ever went for top dollar, belonging to a private collector friend in Arizona.

Gough Medicine-Playgrounds of youth

'And taste The melancholy joy of evils past: For he who much has suffer'd, much will know.'

Homer-The Odyssey, Book xv, Line 434

Beirut on the Mersey - Photo courtesy of Ian Hanslope with thanks -check out his idiosyncratic eye: http://www.ianhanslope.com