“My sins are ever before me.” To me, this translates as “My process is ever before me, ever imperfect.” The visual language is a living thing, ever evolving.
I spied a tot at the water’s edge of a rocky pacific northwest shoreline. She was there with family, and never in any danger. Yet, in the frame she was all alone out there, with only a large rotting pilon from a long gone pier to anchor her. She turned just as I snapped… and looked up, smiling… into the sky. The image haunted me, though I coudnt say why. Each time I looked at it, I was mesmerized, and utterly clueless as to why this was so. Finally, I decided to commit to the image. Pencil, pen, ink, watercolor, acrylic, fibers… I noodled with it again and again. In the end I discovered why it had haunted me so.
Frantically clicking, head bobbing like a chicken at a flea circus, I searched in vain… it was gone. Another reminder that I need to get the update installed with the desk top plug in. This is maddening.
So, today I am taking an alternate route. I hope my expansive readership won’t mind. Love Me When I’m Gone is a slideshow; spur of the moment. It is over run with cliche. It has to be… it’s about an artist’s sacrifice. But, things become cliche precisely because there is an element of truth and because the world becomes jaded. I consider them to be the equivalent of contractions, like “don’t, shouldn’t oughta.” Truth is, the best an artist can hope for is to be worth more dead than alive. The product is rough and poorly timed, but the Lost Post was about “sacred art” and so is this… after a fashion… so to speak… sort of.
Australian born artist Anthony Lister is showing at the Lyons Wier Gallery in New York City from March 19 through to April 19.A lot of my favorite artists are painters that never really give up using the pencil (line). Painterly paintings are good but so are paintings that look like drawings. I guess I like painterly drawings or linear paintings. I like painterly paintings and linear drawings too ;-)Anthony Lister - Terms of Engagement, 2010Mixed media on canvas, 39.5 x 39.5 inchesAnthony Lister - BET, 2010mixed media on paper, 6.5 x 9.5 inchesAnthony Lister Super Girl 1, 2010Mixed media on canvas, 14 x 11 inchesFrom the Lyons Wier Gallery blog here.."Known in the Low Brow movement for his intriguing, playful hybrid of street art, expressionism, and cubism all manifested in non-traditional media such as spray paint; Lister’s new body of work shows the tongue-in-cheek frivolity of his earlier pieces developing (or decaying) into a more mature and disturbing direction. The deformities and un-done aesthetic resolve of Lister’s work provides viewers with a concretization of contemporary societies’ psyche – or, as the artist himself states, “making the obvious more, well, obvious”."OPENING: Fri. March 19th, 2010 6-9pmDATES: March 19th - April 19th, 2010See more Anthony Lister works from the exhibition here or see the artist's website here.
Some cities are lucky enough to be able to worry about smart growth. In Detroit or Flint, the question is whether there are any strategies for smart shrinkage... more We cannot create our own values, or pick and choose the rootstock from which our fragile moral feelings have sprung. We rely still on God... more Women - beheaded, burned to death, stoned, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive - for the honor of their families. It's barbaric and shameful, says Robert Fisk... part 1 ... part 2
