Moons Echo

Acrylic on box canvas 20in x 30in
Moons Echo was conceived after seeing a picture by another artist in a very different medium. Although my painting bares little resemblance to that picture it was the inspiration and catalyst for this painting. The male nude is bound by chains in an academic world where all his hopes and dreams are floating away. The painting also shows that unseen forces hold the ends of the chains which are not fastened, even though they swaddle the man. 
The two faces represent youth and maturity, a life lived by someone elses standards and series of life events. The painting does however offer hope, as the chains remain unbound and the knowledge of a life lived can serve him to find that the world truly is his oyster, and to shoot for the moon.

Modern Man

Acrylic 24in x36in box canvas
Modern man was originally called The Persistence of Memory but throughout the painting, it became more disturbing to me and less about memory and more about the trials of 21st Century life. A fellow Twitterer,  Corey Cochran, sent a Tweet stating that the painting evoked in him that its how many people feel right now, so with this the name changed to Modern Man.
I wanted to show the inner turmoil felt by many men being chained to a life they had not envisaged as part of their life plan, a creative step along from Delirium pro tempore. Being bound and trussed on all levels into a roundabout life of confusion, dissatisfaction, with someone else holding the chains that bind. An almost impossible life that is only just tolerable, but keeps us bound by previous life choices like marriage, career, children and all the other social pressures we have heaped upon ourselves.
We all make choices day to day, big ones, small ones, all of which we cannot completely comprehend the full consequences of, two months, or 20 years down the line....Modern Man is my interpretation of this.
Its been a difficult painting to execute, at one point I was ready to give it up. The image as it evolved was disturbing, touching on feelings with in me of vunerability, both personally and in that of showing the piece, and gave way to memories for me of suffering Post Natal Depression, being tied to a life I wasn't ready to live, that of a baby, marriage etc. With support from some wonderful people on Twitter I persevered and this is the result...and as Corey put it 'it strikes emotion, good or bad, that's what art should do'.
Note: a huge thankyou to @anartistexposed, @ronnietucker, @curly768, and  @Shifty77 for their support and encouragement doing this painting, without you it would be consigned to file b1N.

Delirium pro Tempore

Acrylic 10in x14in box canvas


Delirium pro Tempore is a snap shot of the fleeting insanity felt when communications are so misunderstood, especially between men and women. Sometimes I find the opposite sex completely unfathomable, and have seen that I provoke this same sense of impossible~ness of thinking to the men in my life, past and present.
I wanted the piece to scream without screaming, speak without speaking and convey the all consuming frustration that is felt when finding someone elses opinions and thought processes totally impossible to get the head around, or that the language may as well be that of another planet for all the sense it makes. I enjoyed the disturbing nature of this painting, achieving something that shouts from a silent object is something I am proud of.

Encore

Acrylic 24in x 24in on box canvas

Encore was a continuation of Curtains up, the theatre of arguments and sometimes the unenviable position of provoking violence, when the argument spirals out of control. The painting illustrates the impending doom of the situation, the grandiosity of the perpetrator and that although its a difficult subject its one many of us have faced or do face in our lives. 
As mentioned in previous blog posts I adore men, their beauty, strength and humour, but the flip side can be scary and painful to live with. I have also found from experience that theres a sense of theatre to much of an argument, whether that's the persons involved personalities or an unconscious homage to the violence in the media, I am unsure...I have lived through it, played my part in it, survived it and painted it.

Curtains Up

Curtains Up Acrylic on box canvas 12in x 12in

Curtains Up speaks differently to people. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, a singing? yawning? man. The image for me is the start of an argument, the point where it turns from heated discussion to the beginning of the battle, a fine line, a point which we can see crossed. The painting began in my mind with much more to it, words coming out of the mouth, an idea to try and capture the lessening of listening as the situation goes down the pan. In the end the image that I painted didn't need all the extras, just the mood, the expression and the lighting on the face captured the essence for me, which speaks out in many different ways to the viewer, probably to do with experience and expectation from life projected on to a frozen image.

Its title aptly describes the shenanigans we all come across that are employed when someone wants to make themselves heard over and above everything else. I do only apply, at the moment anyway, the depicting of these strong and often negative emotions to men, because its how I have experienced them, I can FEEL them, been on the receiving end of those emotions and behaviour, and hopefully bring them to life again in my paintings.

Why? I don't have the answer to that. Am more than sure these images don't have mass commercial appeal, that many won't even like them. Should that stop me painting them and hanker after painting something more appealing? I don't know. But for the time being anyway, I need to go along with this and see where it takes me, its a scary road, but one I am excited about and I can honestly say I am loving painting from this place. Maybe its a blind, arrogant egotistical place to paint from, but for me its just honest and free forming, allowing myself the creative freedom my current situation affords me, and one I am finally allowing myself, without the self imposed shackles, of paintings being universally saleable. Maybe the penny has finally dropped! Being an artist is the only profession you can remain penniless and still remain respectable with your dignity, if not bank balance intact ;-)

Double or nothing...

Jester 2 Pen, ink and graphitint pencil A2

Been a while since I blogged, but I have been painting, honest. Jester 2, is a sequential piece arising from Jester. I wanted to portray the two faced personality trait I come across from time to time. I used my original drawing and mirrored the face with some adjustment, but also I liked the way the arms mirrored, which seem to make sense at first glance but actually don't...possibly more of an expression of how I find personalities than the direct depiction of the 'two faced' aspect.

Again in the scribble series, aims to portray the smooth and shade with rough and line. The mask again hides the eyes (I see a pattern emerging, there must be something Freudian in there, somewhere) and reflects the deceit, lies, honesty and truth we are all capable of.

This drawing marked a shift for me, something changed inside me as an artist, a feeling which has reared it head before with fleeting glimpses (some of the male nudes and certainly the corseted women), to paint what I FEEL, not what I want people to admire. A risky move in some respects, as it leaves me wide open and vulnerable in many ways, marks out ever more clearly that I don't fit in (neither a good nor bad thing, it just is) be it my artwork or me generally. Quite a theme for me of recent weeks, and probably it having its roots planted in my art that have snaked out and unsettled most other areas of my life. I am now trying to be somewhat more positive and see it as a metamorphosis from my former self and art to a new and more reassured way of being. Time will tell I guess, but already the artwork means far more to me than it has done in years, as does the act of painting, I feel connected finally!

Scribble series...

'Jester' 59.4cm x 42cm. Indian Ink on 60lb cartridge paper.

I read the autobiography 'Celebration' by Graham David Smith many moons ago, and the jacket photograph always struck me as really beautiful. Given that I was at a bit of a juncture with my artwork, I used that to get me started again. My work often has elements of duality, opposing forces, things that don't automatically go together, so I took the smoothness of the human form and used a scribble type effect that's quite harsh and vigorous to portray the shading of the form.

I have a strange thing for Venetian masks at present, so I combined the two, baring the nakedness of the torso with the covering of the eyes for concealment, such honesty and vulnerability with deliberate disguise. The history of the masks depict that they were used to originally enable 'fair trade' between the classes in C12th Venice between the trades people and the upper classes, but their use soon became utilised to cover all sorts of gambling and debauchery, especially between the classes.

I love the idea of the stunning loud gregarious masks being used for such secret liaisons, a way to disguise in order to be completely true to oneself. A trait we all have to one degree or another. The layers and facets of the human mind often have this weird duality, I know I do.

My current piece is based directly on this duality, using the 'Jester' and doubling up the image to produced a reversed mirror effect, a two faced man. So with that I will leave you and continue with the piece, hopefully completing today.