‘Domesticated VI’, 24″ X 32″, oil on panel, 1996.
This one does have a title its ‘do as I say!’,
I was using a palette knife and a brush for these. I would mix new dried blood colour for doing each line drawing on the blank panel. I had a little mirror hanging on the same wall, and would usually start with a sketch right on the wall. It was covered with little red doodles of my face and attempted body distortions.
I am trying to make the image with as few brushstrokes as possible.
‘Domesticated III’, 20″X 32″, oil on panel, 1996.
I think it is not truly square, its a found piece of masonite as I remember. If it was in the rubbish pile and I thought it was the right shape or just paintable, I would take it, more from cheapness than any idea of recycling or upward cycling like the future decided would be good. New canvas or even decent wood panels for gessoing was expensive as far as I was concerned, and that was from the lumber store, forget about art suppliers.
The series is not numbered by people in the image to be sure, even the first has two people. Some of them have titles, but for now, for this section of my attempted refurbishing of Bedlam Studio Gallery, there are definitely different rooms, I have them numbered, but even that may not be right. Some were painted simultaneously, sometimes three at once, it depended on what I had seen outside the studios. Just a short walk from my apartment to the studios was enough input of despicableness for a week of paintings.
As soon as the group was 3, sides were taken, someone has to be the least. It was like studying anthropology before I went to university and studied anthropology five years later.
Click the cover for a preview of the book.
From famine and war to murder and suicide I have always sought ways which the visual artist could attract the viewer, hold their attention for long enough to see what’s in front of them and prompt a discussion. It’s the temptation of brightly coloured imagery used to create horrifying ideas, human ideas.
Thanks for the help in making more art. Donate whatever you like, for art supplies or coffee.
$2.00
Below is the link to amazon for the hardcover.
‘Domesticated II’, 24″ X 32″, oil on panel, 1996.
There are quite a few painting in this style. I have 32 of them close by or hanging up. Possibly fugurative expressionism, I’m not fond of style labels, it leads far too often to people thinking its connected to or should be compared to a different artist, it is not in someone else’s style, it might be labeled a style, that’s all. The style I developed here was to strip down the elaborate brushwork from the neurotica paintings. A simplification of the image, so the idea that you have been domesticated, is perhaps more easily understood. What are we like when we are put in the same confined spaces as the animals we eat. Soft and mushy bones, fatty muscles, psychological breakdown, extreme violence. Homo domesticus.
‘Hunger’, 72″ X 120″, oil on canvas.
A very large painting, this painting has been in one other smallish gallery that still had a wall big enough. It sat close to the public window, and people did not like it at all. What do I mean by this enormous mountain of skin and starvation and greed, how dare I say this about YOU!!! The window was spat on at least 30 times by human pieces of shit, you know, the majority of you. The gallery owner kep it up for a few days but that was not a good sign, so we pulled it out, I took it off the stretcher, and rolled it up, that was 1997. It has stayed rolled up since then, except for this brief appearance in my video below, called ‘Painting a Picture’. This was after the major breakdown and seizure but before I had to stop using oil paint. It was a regular sized apartment and I rolled the painting out horizontally on the wall. Then put the camera on the seat of my bicycle and rolled it past the painting. There’s maybe 3
seconds in this video. But it got rolled up again immediatley.
A short video of one of the three paintings I made during the year following a seizure and major health problems. Its called tri-polar, fondly mocking my psychiatrists after they gave me my diagnosis of bi-polar disorder. The depressed maniac.
I think most artists have this concept of their masterpiece, the one painting they felt themselves was worthy of showing in a major gallery, maybe even someone in the major gallery would buy it for their collection. I spent a year in one studio painting Hunger, it was an old dance studio, with fabulous 12 foot high walls where I could hang it up.
‘Tri-polar’, 42″ X 42″, oil on canvas. Tearing myself apart from the inside you might say.
‘Hunger II’, 36″ X 60″,oil on canvas, 1993.
The scale is always a problem. Works like this and larger really need wealthy people with a house and walls big enough to look somewhat balanced. And they need to be this size to have the effect I want. A large field of pthalo blue can be quite chilling physically when you stand in front of this. Perhaps its just the idea of a very large starving child.
Its the second of along series of images I thought of as icons to represent the conditions of our times. This piece has only been seen at Bedlam Gallery in 1994. It is somewhat difficult to find a gallery that will show these at all.
If you read this, I am pretty sure I was not accepted by the Cambridge Library Gallery show about poverty, a bit to loud and direct for them.
These are in the red room. Both of these paintings sold and went to a very big home with 3 others larger. It was great fun hanging them for the customer. I absolutely love seeing my work hanging, well, anywhere.
‘Hunger III’, 36″ X 60″, oil on canvas, 1993. $25,000.00 U.S.
‘Cave #IX’, 24″ X 30″, gypsum and acrylic on wood. $1,500.00 U.S.
The gypsum is just a drywall compound, it dries more slowly than plaster so you can fiddle about. This was the 90 minute compound. Painting on the gypsum as its drying, and hot, seems to make a very strong permanent colour. I will know for sure in about 5 thousand years.
The cave of treasures is where Adam and Eve found themselves after god kicked them out of heaven 🙂
The hunters of life.
The god Auroch
‘Neolithic horses’, 16″ X 20″, acrylic on canvas.
‘Giraffes and spaceships’, 16″ X 20″, acrylic on canvas.
‘Bactrian camels’,16″ X 20″, acrylic on canvas.
‘Mammoth’, 16″ X 20″, acrylic on canvas.
‘Out the window.’ 9″X12″, oil on canvas.
And then there’s the bird, and the flowers, actual morning glories, all you need is the delicious aroma of hot chocolate in a mug, 
Then you can leave…
One of the final oil paintings I made, a strange idea, an invitation to leave quickly. I was in a bad mood, as I was unable to use oil paints. Use oil paint and die the doctors told me, they may have been trying to stop me from accidentally painting something.
Graham Houston Arts 