Words

Integration.
Synthesis.
Seperation.
Atomisation.
Isolation.
Connectedness.
Repetition. 
Future.
History.

My entry into the 2013 Gold Coast Art prize

Crisp clean sound, new professionalism

I'll stick my hand into anything

More than this.
Avalon.
The space between us.
The main thing.
Never fear love.
Stable and transparent.

False division

State change.
Poetics shit me.
Compression strength.
Fuck you Dads.
Yelling at Mum.
The struggle with an.
Seal your own coffin.

Incurious and obedient. Isn't it enough that I am?

Fabricated and erected

Nostalgia for chemicals is not logical

Punk.
Order.
Love.

There is no meaning to be found in wallowing in one's own inadequacies.

Us lonely types romanticise our solitude. 

We pretend to love it.
We entertain the notion of an unsullied disconnectedness.
A seemingly honest emotional state.
A forgiving place to hide from ourselves and the rest of the world.
But it is a lie.

It is not a path that will lead to any deeper self knowledge or truth.

I realise now that this type of self imposed, indulgent loneliness is just lazy privilege.

It denies our fundamental interdependence and connectedness to others.

So fuck.

Fuck being sad.

Fuck being lazy.
Fuck wasting time.

Fuck wasting opportunities.  

There is no meaning to be found in wallowing in one's own inadequacies.

Unable

Words build no bridges.
Not today.

Organation

Titles

THE FUTURE OF DISCIPLINE

PROGRESS IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT

FABRICATED AND ERECTED

DEPENDABLE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING

ACTIVE NEUTRALIST

SIGN OF QUALITY AND TECHNICAL ADVANCEMENT

TO HAVE ASSOCIATES EVERYWHERE

POWER IS BORN HERE

AMERICAN STRENGTH

FORCED INTEGRATION

Unecessary DMZ

Parched, aggravated cavities itch.
Soon soothed by drink.
Distracted by drink.
Purposeful and intended obfuscation. 

Deep itch penetrates and permanent discontent now resides at the core of even the most glacial of my varied states.
Never fully ridden or hidden.
Perpetual, uneasy accord.

Small things made today

Words for a zine on freedom and a painting of a skull

Freedom is real.

Experiencing freedom is an impossibility.

To experience freedom we require language.

Language has rules and parameters.

These rules limit our ability to experience.

We know no freedom.

The skull.

The skull is mortality.

The skull is death.

Death is real.

Death is experiential.

Death is beyond words.

We can never know death. 

Preamble

My successful entry to this years 2D section of the Sunshine Coast Art Prize. It is titled, Preamble.

Missing

I haven't written anything of a creative persuasion in quite a while. The urge to write just hasn't been present. In the past I have felt words and ideas swell and gestate in me. My emotional and intellectual, alchemy would brew, fester and then eventually spill out. A gently squeezed, emotional Mt Vesuvius would run through my diaries and in time words would appear on this blog. It is now a most infrequence occurence and is a form of creativity that I wish to reclaim.

The question that I've been working on is why exactly have I stopped writing? The most obvious explanation would be that I've been taking anti depressants again for almost a year now. My resulting emotional stability has removed a great deal of the fuel on which I used to run my writing. In time I look forward to replacing it with a new source of fodder. Something rich, powerful and sustainable.

Comfort

Comfort with judgement.
Knowing enough to form opinions of myself and other people.
Knowing that judgment and forgiveness accompany one another and have never been mutually exclusive.

I've said it before but I really mean it this time...almost complete

Some odd little works on paper

Work continues.

Works on paper in Sydney @ The Hughes Gallery

Perfect from now on, version 2 @ Moreton Regional Art Gallery

I see no danger. Small work on paper

Yellow

Another couple finished :)

Completed works on paper

Two largish paintings almost complete...soon...

Three more works on paper complete

Almost complete

Works on paper, works in progress

Completed set of small pictures aka Drones

Nice night for paintin'

A good day of work.

Works headin' down to Sydney next week

Possible painting titles

Bad timing

Glitch strategy

Joe Chill

The entrails are not favourable

Blended

You always fear what you don't understand

Killing a vampire

Good luck

Deadspeak

Old man

Dramatic example

Now is the time for sincere regret and apology

Push ups to failure

Velvet kevorkian

Future carcass

The coming year, things I've lost and a general positive message of not being a sad bastard :)

I feel extremely positive about this coming year. In both my museum work (my job may go permanent!!!! :) and my art career. Often I've approached a new year in a certain directionless manner combined with with a sense of uncertainty. This suited me, as I was uncertain and directionless. Well, perhaps that is overstating things a little. My compass has been fairly consistent over the last few years but this year I feel it is much less vague. Life, currently, seems to have a focus, consistency and simplicity that it has lacked in the past. 

Loneliness is a presence in my life. Not in any general way. I do not lack company. My loneliness is very specific. This is not something that causes me any overt despair but I do find myself pondering my last relationship and all of the joys and complications that it brought to my life. I miss her. That stated, I do not miss the angst and conflict that we both felt whilst we were together. Love is a tricky thing and I guess it is always difficult and problematic in its various manifestations. It never seems to be clean or simple. Not in my experience. This personal fact most definitely says more about my psychology than the general existence and state of love. Even in the absence of a practical mechanism that would allow two contrary points of view to exist simultaneously and in harmony I still want what I had.

Work will dominate this year. As it often does, but this year will be busy. I am involved in two group shows at the beginning of the year and I have a solo show scheduled in September. All the shows are going to be fantastic and the work I'm making for them continues to surprise me with an unexpected visual logic. Art seems a very unconscious practice sometimes. I do like how a small set of rules and whole lot of improvisation can provide very unexpected results. It is one of the true joys of making that one can surprise oneself and others. I also intend to hit the art prizes pretty hard. They are expensive to enter but the exposure they provide makes them well worth cost of entry. 

In many ways what I have just written sums up my coming year. Hard work and the shadow of a difficult, lost love. It is however going to be an excellent year. I'm sure there will be many unexpected eruptions of positive and negative incidence. I can't wait to see what happens! Life is weird. It seems so odd that there is something rather than nothing but I am really glad that I get to experience what I do. Life is good and I am a very lucky person.

Oh, one last thing. In the matters of body image and self esteem, I have managed to drop my weight from around 93kg to about 83kg in only a couple of months :) Exercise is good! 

As Jeff Fenech said many moons ago, I LUVZ YEZ ALL, I LUVZ YA!!!

Friday evening painting. Work continues

Small, solid, blue and yellow + From intimacy to nothing

Workin' workin' workin'