Art Competition Entry

I've entered this piece in the adultshop.com/artrage erotic art prize. My inspiration? Oedipus. Incest is a highly taboo topic in our society, yet it permeates some of our most basic and early myths. This work combines images of the Greek myth/play Oedipus and his mother/wife Jocasta with that of the Hindu god Shiva and his sister/consort Kali.

THE MALE FIGURE

Oedipus, as the hero of the Greek myth and of Sophocles's play, is the most detailed character and hence drawn in the most detailed manner. He has swollen ankles -- a deformity resulting from when his biological parents pinned his ankles with nails and left him exposed on a mountainside to die. The infanticide was an attempt by Laius and Jocasta, the parents of Oedipus, to escape the curse (to kill his father and marry his mother) that resulted from Laius kidnapping and raping a young boy. The male also has a pin in one eye -- an injury that Oedipus

inflicted upon himself after discovering that he had indeed fulfilled the prophesied curse.

As Shiva, the male in this couple is well built and athletic, has white skin, a calm demeanour and holds his right hand up in a stance typical of representations of this god. Both Shiva and Oedipus have a sexual relationship with their sister/mother/consort and this is demonstrated by the erect member of the male.

THE FEMALE FIGURE

Kali is typically represented with black skin, wearing a garland of 51 heads, symbolising the 51 letters of the Sanskrit script. In this incarnation, she still has black skin, only 3 skulls (one each for birth, preservation and destruction) and also has some Sanskrit lettering written upon her. The script is taken from the Devi-Mahatmyam and translates to:

"Out of the surface of her forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ) , decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger’s skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas."

The female figure hangs by a noose, as Jocasta hung herself in the closet when she realised that Oedipus was her son and husband. The link between Kali and Jocasta is very interesting as Kali, among other things, represents birth, preservation and destruction, whereas Jocasta gave birth to Oedipus, continued the rule of Thebes with him and was also complicit in his downfall. However, as a supporting character within the Oedipus story, she is drawn in a less detailed manner than Oedipus/Shiva.

REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva

Cafepress.com: My Online Store

http://www.cafepress.com/nomadic_artist

Now you can own your very own piece of me!

Kite

This is the first piece of art I ever sold. It was being shown at a community arts exhibition and sold for far less than a princely sum. Regardless, the feeling I had when one of the curators told me I'd sold work was as if I'd sold work for a million dollars after exhibiting at the Louvre. I jumped up and down on the spot and clapped my hands -- ah, good times ...

How to Savour Your Chocolate

Image courtesy of www.observatoiredelafranchise.ro/cgi-bin/home

Proud to announce I'm the newest Christmas casual working for the Chocolate Man. This guy imports some of the most divine chocolates and is ever the connoisseur. Tips for your eating pleasure:

1. Chocolate should be consumed at a temperature of 17 - 20 degrees

2. Look at the chocolate - it should be slightly matte, not shiny

3. Smell the chocolate - it should be slightly bitter on the nostril. The higher the cocoa percentage, the sharper the aroma

4. Hold the chocolate between your fingers until it melts slightly, then separate your fingers. The melted chocolate should form a small point on the fingertip, rather than dragging like mozzerella

5. Put part of the chocolate in your mouth and snap it in half - it shoud make a clean, glasslike break when at optiumum eating temperature

6. Put the chocolate on the tongue and let it melt onto the tastebuds

7. When swallowing, allow the chocolate to roll over the tongue so that the entire palatte of flavours can be experienced

8. A good chocolate will have a linger flavour that can last up to 30 minutes if you don't eat or drink anything else. Relish the aftertaste!

Remembering Rodos

Excerpt

I've been thinking lately about the possibility of putting on a very small and casual exhibition of some of my sketches before I leave Perth next year ... here's my concept so far:

I've never done this sort of thing before and right now it seems huge and undoable, but I'm working on it in small steps, so we'll see how things go!

Women and Speed Dating

A friend of mine has tried speed dating a couple times, with only disappointment as his reward. He thinks the women who go to speed dating are too picky. I think women in general are picky -- well, pickier than men at any rate.

Why are they so picky? One of the reasons is the Cinderella complex. Nearly everything they hear from time immemorial tells them that true love and love at first sight exists and sooner or later Prince Charming will sweep them off their feet.

They may be post modern women, but why would you bother applying a post modernist deconstruction of the dominant ideology when you get such a sweet deal out of it?

And it IS a sweet deal. Except for the part where real life doesn't work like that at all. That's when the women get bitter and wrinkly from all the scowling.

And THAT'S when capitalism (and convenience) kicks in and they figure hey I can just pay to meet Prince Charming.

Enter speed dating.

Jungle/Phoenix

When I travel, sketching and writing poetry are generally a breeze -- there's so much to see and it's easy to take a pencil and journal with me. Getting any painting done, however, is murder. This most recent trip was my first attempt at producing something in colour whilst in transit -- both are pieces in water colour pencil on card. Jungle was posted to my brother with the usual inane postcard chat on the back ("having a great time blah blah who cares...") and the Phoenix was a gift for my father on his birthday. All in all, not a bad attempt as far as colour in transit goes, though I have to admit I still really missed my easel and set of A2 Chroma acrylics ...

papertiger media

Today I discovered this site, whose content and approach really appeal to me. A bit poetry, a bit art, a bit multimedia, a bit all three and most importantly, they don't sound like elitists or wankers.

http://www.papertigermedia.com/


Quoted from the About Us page:

"Award-winning publishers of poetry and art since 2000

papertiger media was established in Brisbane, Australia, by Paul Hardacre and Marissa Newell.
publishers of the papertiger: new world poetry CDROM, hutt poetry ezine, anything i like art ezine, and the soi 3 modern poets imprint, papertiger media is unique in its vision and dedication to diversity, by publishing in three formats.

Queensland-centric, but with an eye to the international, papertiger media now has an Asia office in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to complement the activities of its Brisbane headquarters.
Winners of the Queensland Writers Centre's Johnno Award for its outstanding contribution to writers and writing in the state of Queensland, papertiger media has emerged as one of Queensland's most important and prolific cultural producers."

When You

• 
  The poem and the painting were created at different times -- one for someone I love dearly and the other because I had too much blue paint left over from another art project ... but they go together nicely, I think ... something about blue and blue?

Septic Skyline/Shatter/Granny Smith

This is one of the most finicky and preplanned paintings I have ever done. My usual mode of painting is to do a few preliminary sketches and colour studies, then have at it on a blank canvas. Not so with Skeptic Skyline. I drew in every line of every building and acutally used a ruler (unheard of for me, before, or since). I even tried to use those lines that are supposed to give you a sense of perpective and stuff! All this precision on top of my normal painting routine ... exhausting and just madness. It might be another few years before I attempt something like this again!





This was painted as a gift for my next door neighbour. My inspiration: the round window. Let me explain. I'm not much good at abstract art -- at least when you paint something nonabstract you have some sort of image or reference point to compare your work against. How do you paint something that is supposed to look like nothing?? And yet, my neighbour asked for some abstract art. When faced with the daunting prospect of creating abstract art, one of my favourite questions for inspiration is to ask, "What was your favourite window in Play School?" [Play School is an Australian children's show and one of the regular segments involved looking through one of three windows, round, square or arch, to see what was happening -- a film clip of something from real life would then be played. No one except for me ever seems to choose the arch window ... ]





Another gift, this time for my brother's 21st birthday. Again, the magic Play School question, this time also supplemented by, "What colour do you want it?" What's green and round? Well, natch ... Something I particularly enjoy about this painting is the contrast between the semi-realistic approach and blended colours of the apple's body versus the hard lines and unnatural colours of the leaves in the centre. If the leaves had been drawn in a similar style to the apple, it would have been just another still life, but now it's something a bit oddish.

A Taste of China Part 1

A Taste of China Part 2

Paris 2005 -- Where it all began ...

Ever had one of those really bad days? Or weeks? Or months? Life had been kinda crap for me for a while. My marriage had disintergrated (admittedly, I was the one who called it quits, I'm sure things sucked many more balls for my ex), I was dealing with parental relationship stuff, taking on extra responsibilities at work, maintaining my somewhat lacklustre social life and [foolishly] participating in faaaar too many extra activities (art, ballet, WASO chorus, classes in acting, scripting, directing and music theatre at the Actors Workshop, training at the UWA Fencing Club ... I'm getting tired just writing this list -- don't know how I did it at the time!)

There was one particularly sterling night, where, at a dinner with my extended family, the news of my doomed relation was unceremoniously broached: "Where's your other half?" "Erm, we've been separated since the start of this year." "Oh."

Post-dinner, whilst wallowing in self pity, I thought, my life is so ugly right now. I want to see something beautiful. What's beautiful? Art. Art -- the Louvre. The Louvre -- Paris. I want to go to Paris. What, are you insane? Well, if my life right now is sanity, hand me a straight jacket.

And off I went, merrily, to travel alone when I'd never travelled alone before, to a place where I'd never been before, where I didn't speak the language and the locals were reputed to be the snob of the earth. It was great! (By the way, the Parisians and the French in general are lovely, their pooheadedness is a fallacy).