Domesticated

‘Domesticated’, 24″ X32″, oil on panel. 1996. (Homo domesticus)

There are about 100 pieces in this series scattered around the earth. I still have 40 or so here in my studio/gallery. Some people don’t care for them. They have been in several shows the year after they were painted. I can only say some poeple can get very upset if you say the wrong thing, even if its a painting. One show was protested so loudly the owner became afraid and removed my work. Now that’s mob censorship. The show was titled “Want”, and this was one of them, probably the least offensive of them all. I highly doubt they will be shown at any gallery anywhere near me anytime soon.

The Other Foot

‘The Other Foot’, 8″ X 10″,carbon on paper. It is a type of meditation for me, I have no idea where I am or what time it is, or even if time is a substance at all when I am drawing. The drawing presents itself in my mind, and I make the idea real on paper with a pencil. I had made a strange carving in wood of the foot of a horse, Pegasus to be exact, someone chopped off its feet so it could never land again, as Pegasus is immortal it could never land on earth again. It isn’t a classical myth or ancient origin, its a dream I had. This is the other foot.

Dancing across the heavens. The art of dreaming. I usually have a notebook to write in beside my bed. Sometimes the dream lingers long enough to write a few sentences. These sentences will then trigger the memory of the whole dream. Sometimes its only a couple of words. Sometimes the dream just evaporates as I struggle to open the book.

Pros and Cons

This is the original from my osteology course in anthropology. The x-ray style is done using photoshop 7, the old one. Could we consider that an A.I., or is it just a tool the A.I. uses in the same way we do, as we showed it how to after all. I have always assumed the machine I purchased to cut vinyl lettering in my sign shop was an A.I. That was in the late 1980’s, likely the end of my particular business, I was a sign-painter. The machine, I shall begin here to call it Arti, personalize it, I still haven’t decided on a pronoun for Arti. It is supposed to give us whatever we want, and its watching us now to find out what that thing might be. Today, possibly the idea we worship wealth and power, not just like it, we worship the war mongering banana thieves. Holy warriors marching into an uncertain future, still. Stop marching, apologize to all humanity for your behaviour. Perhaps stop whining about how hard it is to be a billionaire. They all do it, you must have noticed.

The engineers mantra is to create tools for us to make our lives and jobs easier. The point is taking away horrible jobs, like urine collector for the tannery down the road. What they are doing is designing a machine that reproduces that which anthropology and archaeology states deifines you as a concious being. The act of creating, art, literature music, etc. Maybe we should have engineers make a similar oath that doctors do before they get that degree. Do no harm!

Neurotic

‘Neurotica’, 36″ X 72″, oil on canvas, 1997. Also deliberately using forms and colours to get the viewer to react or feel something, possibly against their will. With visual art closing the eyes is too late, all the information goes in at the speed of light.

Here is the painting for scale hanging in the stairwell of the only upside down house on Earth, so far.

Neurotica

Using form and colour to provoke a viewer into a reaction. I suppose that describes all artworks. Now that we are surrounded by the A.I. and its brilliance, I am wondering with all my work, how many words would the A.I. need to make this. What would you say in a sentence to get this image. If my name or page are used as a prompt, would that be copyright infringement?

‘Neurotica XXX’, 21″ X 35″, oil on canvas, 1997/98. This is number 30 of this ongoing series, mostly now in pencil or inks. I would love to turn them all into giant oil on canvas paintings, but that would require a lot of money, mainly to find space big enough that I don’t get injured again from the chemical fumes. It took months to get the smell of linseed oil out of my tiny studio apartment. But I still prefer working in oils. You can get effects like airbrushing using just a regular brush, dry brush effects and the like.

Fractal

This was created in photoshop using the painting Broken Symmetry.

This is an overlay showing roughly where the fractal emerged.There has been a bit more painting since I made this. But it can be achieved by following any row of the pentagons, then I separated the outside from the inside. I used these solid contrasting colours, blue and pink, to see the edge better.

Broken Symmetry : The Spring Offensive

Broken Symmetry : Painting the equation.

Continuing to paint the equation. In this clip I am just adding a small shadow to one side of a series of pentagons. This is not sped up at all, I don’t care for that, it makes my eyes object. Or maybe my brain does. But it might be loud, it usually is quite loud in here when I’m painting. Peace and quiet…pffft.!!

The Studio at the Centre of the Universe.