Obsession

‘Ponder Too’, 36″ X 72″, oil on paper, 1996. A sure sign of an obsession of some kind, giant heads maybe, flexible giant heads. Much more it was the first steps after Bedlam Gallery closed, really pondering what to do next, why do I have another studio, I have no money etc. etc. But I was determined to stuff my genius into your heads,like it or not. I was working on the ‘neurotica’ series prior to these, quite a different method,I wanted to mold the heads into a twisted organic single head.This was an example of going to the nth degree with an idea. I wanted to make them even bigger, 20 or 30 feet would be good. At the time I had lots of paint, enough to use a plastering trowel to paint with oils, but the canvas was out of my budget, so paper and scrap wood worked fine. Also to store the idea, artists would know this, like a sketch but enough to stand alone.

The three ponderings for scale. Imagine them on forty foot canvases in the atrium of the giant bank where they have the golden toilet seats stored.