Paintings 2020

A splatter of paint, smudged out to incoherent form - smug smile for somebody who's just a décor. Layers that nobody cares to peel back, reflective sunglasses hiding empty eyes, staring into a blank horizon of a hue similar to the skin you wear. Unimaginative description of a plain face, hiding complexity and depth behind simple lines.

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This piece was one of those paintings that I had a clear motif and image in my head before I set to painting it. The cross is a recurring symbol in my work, a symbol I find both inspiring and beautiful in its simplicity. The execution of this work is a lot more amateurish than my others and this is a piece I would like to revisit and perhaps remake in the future as I am a big fan of the motif and the story. The painting from title to image is heavily symbolic and allegorical.

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Also named YHWH and Gomorrah. This piece was influenced by two great literary works; the Bible and Valis, a novel by Philip K. Dick. The two have more in common than may be initially believed. V.A.L.I.S is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System and really refers to Dick's view on God. By a lot of people, Dick is considered a modern gnostic, and the novel itself draws inspiration from Dick's own mystical and unexplainable religious experiences. The writing is heavily autobiographical with some sci-fi elements, leaving the reader to figure out what is real and what is fiction on their own.

This painting imagines the allegories of the Bible to be real and Dick's novel to be real and for them to be one and the same. Different names are given to the same things. A small mountain city is destroyed by fire and brimstone with a vast pink light shining down on the citizens in their final hour, in the background a faint angelic figure blows the doomsday trumpet.

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In the land of the blind the one eyed is king. Rulership is a heavy burden to shoulder and the crown weighs heavy on minds that can't bear it. Dense is the gold which it seems to shimmer with, and alluring is its power - yet those who have been intoxicated with its sweetness often find their teeth falling out.

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There's a darkness that looms over some people, and seems to fill the air around them. Others are carry light but prefer the night to really see their own brightness. Dressed in dark the bright can cleverly hide away from the prey that hunt in the night, controlling their light carefully to not attract unwanted attention.

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One of the darker pieces I've made. I really wanted to capture a feeling of dread and despair, I wanted to paint something horrendous. Sickly flesh, rotting and crooked teeth, exposed and fragile ribcage - the Martyr here is not a martyr despite the name, it is a sick and sinful entity whose Gloria imitates light but is filled with buzzing flies. Blind and mislead, lost in darkness - it screams into the void.

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The only "official" education I have received was one evening of painting acrylics in a course that was shortly cancelled because of the Covid pandemic. This evening we were given a canvas, paints, brushes and told to paint a still life of three vases. I stood out in the group of students as the only male and the only person below the age of 40. The course was a birthday gift from my mother, I myself have never considered taking any classes as I believe experience itself to be the only teacher necessary to create. I find a classroom to be very under stimulating and sometimes even a hindrance to creativity. I finished painting the canvas and the still life before anyone else and bored and left to my own devices I worked away at the background, adding faces and more details.

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A much deeper and more personal self-portrait than the first simple one I had made. As with all self-portraits I have made it captures a state of being and a feeling of self rather than an image of the physical body in which I reside. The painting took a long while and the most difficult aspect was the hair, yet one day a breakthrough came and it was without notice the technique for painting my own hair dawned upon me. With this realisation I immediately set to finish the piece, and finish it I did - or so I thought. I had forgotten a crucial detail; namely my scars.

In my teenage years I suffered from suicidal ideation, depression and because of this I engaged in self-harm. I would occasionally cut myself with a knife and I still have those scars to this day. At the time I was ashamed of them, and I rarely if ever cut around my wrists where it would be visible, yet the behaviour provided me with some relief. I no longer feel shame for it and I have come to embrace myself - scars included.

The painting is painted with not only acrylic paints. There is wine, blood and tears in it as well. Infused with my own being the painting is very special and is literally a part of me.

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The Lady in a Hat came to me in a way only some paintings have. In complete silent contemplation did I stare down the canvas until it revealed to me what was hidden within. Indeed I stood there staring at it for so long at some point a shape appeared. I followed that shape and with great joy did I bring her forth. It was one of the few paintings around the time that I painted with pure bliss. No negative feelings presented themselves, only joy and positivity. The creative process was the same it was when I had realised this was my calling, it was effortless and merry. The painting never struggled with me in the process, it was always light and forthcoming. To this day I can still see the Light which it is painted with. It was no wonder then that this was the first painting I sold.

The painting was sold to a couple of friends of mine. While I would have happily given them any painting for free the support meant more to me than I can write, it was the proof for me that my art doesn't only have sentimental value to me but is also valued by others. It may seem materialistic, but money is a good way to show creators that their work is not only worth kind words and admiration, but they are in fact worthy of their time; their time being needed for their survival. Money allows us eat and to build our nests, and it frees our time to spend it working on creating more art.

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Surrounded by brimstone and fire, legions of warriors are on the march towards the ember dawn. As the rising sun heralds a new morning the troops gather under rebellion's banner. Draped in discontentment and the desire for something better; the king holds a speech to them all. Silent winds carry the words to every ear to hear - they are ready to reclaim the day.

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Some people prefer the night, prefer to be out of sight. Owl recognises owl and rat recognises rat. Artificial light is what gives the city-dwellers the ability to see and to turn the profit of the day into the treasures of the night.

Hollowed out and deshelled we all feel a little empty sometimes, like we're without colour and as if we're just a shadow of who we really are. This piece was an attempt to utilise the white of the canvas and work around that, a method I have come to embrace and I think can be quite powerful in its communication of ideas.

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The Eye of the Storm was one of the earliest paintings but it took several years to finish. I had begun on it perhaps in 2017-18 and finished it in 2020. For most of the time it remained in the same form, uncertain of what it was. I had tried to capture the feeling of being in the middle of a snowstorm. Yet I was unsatisfied, my skills weren't good enough to properly communicate the feeling, and years later when I returned to it I didn't have the same feeling about it. Instead there was a new and different energy that was moving in the middle of this storm.

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Djinn are spiritual entities that usually aren't good. They can be malevolent and destructive and constantly try to steer humanity away from the greater good. They can't directly influence us as people but they can deceive us and trick us into making bad choices. It is said that while a djinn can never force the hands of man to either suicide or murder they can fool them into committing these atrocious sins.

The first djinn came to me when the world soul was deeply troubled. Police brutality and violence against civilians in the US seemed to reach new heights, and the reaction to this was deeper and more fierce - resulting in destruction, fire and wounding. It was shortly after the infamous death of George Floyd that the djinn came to me, I could feel how angry and vengeful the collective consciousness felt and the djinn offered fire breath to those who could not breathe.

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A very simple and small painting, I've always liked doing buildings and in fact some of the few drawings I did as a child had castles in them. This one proved to be a good exercise in lighting and painting water, even if I mostly see wrongs in it in the end I am still content with how it turned out. I really liked the boat and the footsteps, this kind of visual storytelling is something I love in art, it allows the observer to be the one who has arrived in that boat and imagine what they find on the inside of that castle.

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