Baaaaaaaa

Oh yeah, I shaved all my hair off.

Here I am shorn and cold (note: nipple-tasticness!) / performing an impromptu-Marty Feldman (how the fuck can there be no pictures of him on the Wikipedia page???) impression / demonstrating how one side of my face is paralysed and I can no longer smile properly / or without scaring children.

In the background you can see The Golfer, one of my favourite-ever paintings of mine that I have done ever, even though I look at it now and all I can see are the things that are wrong with it.

I've got some drawings in a group drawing show at ROAR!. The opening is on Thursday night; there's more detail here. The drawings are 'excerpts' from this series which is known as Storyboard for the Movie of the Making of Heroic Cocks Nos. 1 - 3.

Blues, hollers and hellos

Update on the painting (stink photo again, goddammit). It's called Never had a name. (I know this because I found this scrawled on the back of it in pencil.) I started it in 2002. It'll be good to get it finished and out of the way.

o o o

This is a track from an album by a band called Tinariwen. They're Touareg minstrels from the desert in North Africa. I'm in the middle of reviewing their most recent album Aman Iman (Water is Life) for Foxy Digitalis.

Tinariwen - Tourmast (3.04 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

I'm one of these monsters numb with grace

Yeah, whoops.. sorry about that. I've not been paying much attention to the blog for a few days; been spending a lot of mental energy on getting working on a new series of paintings.

To that end I've begun to finish-off a painting (left) which is a gift for a friend. The photo is a but washed-out and blurry sorry -- that's down to the poor light*. Also, don't worry -- I haven't gone mental. All that scratchy-scrawly stuff around the cactus is just under-painting. More on this one soon, I feel.

So to get underway on the new series I gotta clear the decks a bit. In addition to finishing this painting, I gotta:

• Find my bloody gun stapler. I'm stumped by the disappearance of this -- I have all the staples, just not the stapler.
  
• Remember who I lent my DVD of My Best Fiend to and get it back off them and watch it again to remind myself of some of the visual themes I wanted to develop but never went anywhere with or even jotted down or sketched last time I watched it.
  

*Note: I support the environmentally-concious rationale behind stopping the sale of incandescent bulbs, but it's going to suck for painting at night. Really, really suck.

Philip Guston would possibly agree:

Philip Guston Studio, 1969 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Bad Habits, 1970 (via National Gallery of Australia)

Philip Guston Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1973 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Pantheon, 1973 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Head and Bottle, 1975 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Story, 1978 (via Artnet.com)

All images are sourced from other sites; please click on the links to further investigate these valuable online resources.

Fuck he's good, aye?

Here's my contribution fwiw:

Stephen Clover Are You Digital?, 2003

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars

I'm getting kinda tired of the whole killer-guy-from-Twin Peaks-look schtick. It's been a number of months since my project reached fruition and I've done nothing about it and I'm now thinking of something new. In fact, after a comment from a friend a few weeks ago likening me to Allen Ginsberg (R.I.P.) and then seeing the brilliant fantasy scene featuring Ginsberg and Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, I think I will look in that direction.

Of course that's David Cross playing Ginsberg in the film, not the man himself. I probably can't manage that degree of hirsuteness; I may have to go for a more senior Ginsberg a la his 1985 self-portrait (right, via the Village Voice).

I feel I will also have to lose a bit of weight to get there.

o o o

It's Saturday today. Last night at a Mexican restaurant I realised that there is still a lot of very nice tequila about that I haven't yet had the pleasure of drinking. I immediately resolved to rectify this situation. Hopefully this pursuit does not turn out to be mutually exclusive with the Ginsberg project. More soon...

o o o

New album out recently from Wiley. It's called Grime Wave.

Wiley - Local Lad (1.84 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

The sound is STRONG, yo.

Something to go to in Wellington

My friend John Lake is having an exhibition:

He's an ace photographer and it's going to be really really good, I reckon.

Champagne and misery where are you?

On and off, over the years, a good number of people have asked me why I don't have any work from my Spaceships Of The Mind series available in my online-portfolio.

Are ''Friends'' Electric?, 2002
Oil on canvas, 64x99 cm
(private collection)

So over the weekend I pulled finger, and uploaded some.

Warning: Spoiler

Joy!

My 18-month-long self-renovation art-project -- making myself over in the image of the killer from Twin Peaks -- has almost reached fruition.

Resurrecting history pt. 2

Late January, 2005
Operational HQ, Urewera National Park

It's meal time at the base in the heart of the forest, but Tame Iti is upset and rather off his food. He has changed into his coat of many colours*, and is far more interested in talking radical politics than eating. On the table between them is a ceremonial meal of roasted meat; the ritual sacrament is known as The long arm of the law. The DragoAngel of Attractive Home Lighting Solutions is pestering Tame Iti to tell him if he's going to eat his share of the food, and if not, can he have it. Tame Iti is talking about Eldridge Cleaver, and paying no attention. Now the DragoAngel is paying no attention either, he is humming softly. Beneath his breath he is singing along to the song playing on the radio...

What is happening to my skin?
Where is that protection that I needed?
Air can hurt you too
Air can hurt you too
Some people say not to worry about the air
Some people don't know shit about the...
Air... Air...
It can break your heart

* This is how Tame Iti, ever the prankster, refers his camouflage casual wear.

Resurrecting history pt. 1

January 16, 2005
Tauaarau Marae, Ruatoki
Tame Iti, wearing what appeared to be a skirt, a trooper’s cap and a FREE TAME ITI tee-shirt (or is that t-shirt, one can never remember), discharges a double-barrelled shotgun into the New Zealand flag. He then calls in his air support -- the DragoAngel of Attractive Home Lighting Solutions -- which arrives, swoops down and lifts Iti into the sky, allowing him to reload and get in another couple of good shots at the destroyed flag. The DragoAngel then whisks Tame Iti away to their base deep in the Ureweras.

UPDATE: Note (to self, as much as anyone), it's TAME Iti, not "Tama Iti". Sheesh.

Something to go to in Wellington (crosspost)

Hinterland II
Sandra Schmidt

Michael Hirschfeld Gallery (at City Gallery)
10 October — 18 November 2007

...more at the Wellingtonista...

Multifaceted

I have been speculating for some time about what this is (on the pavement in Ghuznee Street outside Hamish McKay and Bowen Galleries):


One Moment Caller has speculated that it's the base of a sculpture, and made a purty wire-frame representation of it.



...

Another installment by The Commonsense Nihilist to his graphic novel.

...

A song:

The Legend! - Melt The Guns (2.33 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

From the 1987 Creation Records compilation WOW Wild Summer.

Cameo Appearance

New exhibition Cameo Appearance at Mary Newton Gallery -- featuring work by personal faves David Cauchi and Gary Freemantle -- opens on Tuesday night. (Wellingtonista)

The philosophy of love

Kim Pieters' new exhibition at Bowen Galleries in Ghuznee Street is quite seductive:





(click images for larger versions)

Hamish McKay Gallery reopens

... my post on the Wellingtonista.