- Unloved
Craig Turner Gallery
52 Union Street Maidstone Kent, England
Gallery Hours: 10am-4pm Tuesday-Saturday
All work is for sale through gallery.
January 4, 2012
Latest Exhibition at The Craig Turner Gallery, Maidstone, Kent, UK Jan 2011
December 19, 2011
Self Portrait; End of the Angry Man
Self Portrait; End of the Angry Man
2011
Dimensions: 11″ x 14″
Medium: Pencil, charcoal, acrylic and spray paint on canvas board
November 8, 2011
He was different from Us, he had to be killed!
- He was Different from us, He had to be killed
… to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Moby-Dick, Ch. 135
Detail from artwork from collaboration with Craig Turner/Tag 33
’
Year: 2011
Medium: Graphite pencil, pigments pens, and spray paint on bond paper
October 7, 2011
Pluto; The Rapist God
- Pluto
To thee, great king, Avernus is assign’d,
The seat of Gods, and basis of mankind.
Thy throne is fix’d in Hade’s dismal plains,
Distant, unknown to rest, where darkness reigns;
Where, destitute of breath, pale spectres dwell,
In endless, dire, inexorable hell;
And in dread Acheron, whose depths obscure,
Earth’s stable roots eternally secure.
O mighty dæmon, whose decision dread,
The future fate determines of the dead,
With captive Proserpine, thro’ grassy plains,
Drawn in a four-yok’d car with loosen’d reins,
Rapt o’er the deep, impell’d by love, you flew
‘Till Eleusina’s city rose to view;
There, in a wond’rous cave obscure and deep,
The sacred maid secure from search you keep,
The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display
An entrance to the kingdoms void of day.
Of unapparent works, thou art alone
The dispensator, visible and known.
O pow’r all-ruling, holy,
honor’d light, Thee sacred poets and their hymns delight:
Propitious to thy mystic’s works incline,
Rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.
2011
Dimensions: 11″ x 14″
Medium:
Beeswax/linseed stand oil cold encaustic, oils, and polyester lace on canvas
September 8, 2011
Virgin Mary Nursing Infant Jesus On A Stolen Frigate
Language bearers, Photographers, Diary makers
You with your memory are dead, frozen
Lost in a present that never stops passing
Here lives the incantation of matter
A language forever.
Like a flame burning away the darkness
Life is flesh on bone convulsing above the ground
-E. Elias Merhige. 1991
(detail from Tag 33 project)
Collaboration with Craig Turner
July 3, 2011
Thirsty Old Pirate
- Thirsty Old Pirate
Anyone that has ever suffered through addiction, of one kind or another, knows the consistent desperation of ones eventual life. Addictions transform us into people that we were not before, sometimes even for the better, but in the end, always for the worse.
Stigmas abound, but the character of a person is ultimately what defines them. I have seen more than my fair share of abusive, hateful, racist, bigots that never required a single drop of a substance to be that way, and I’ve seen the most pathetic junkies with hearts full of the most honest unselfish love ever known.
The preparatory sketches for this piece were create several years ago, it was after I found just the right piece of maple board refuse that I decided to commit it to oils.
May 27, 2011
Drunken Pirate Scoundrels Manning Their Cannons
- Drunken Pirate Scoundrels Manning Their Cannons
…. I’ll see you all aboard ship, until then, man ye cannons my shipmates!
♥
~ William Barry Roberts
April 20, 2011
Latest Exhibition: Flamingos, Dust Bunnies and Decay
Bob Ross Rotting
I currently have five individual works of art within the Flamingos, Dust Bunnies & Decay exhibition at the elegant Space 237 Gallery at 237 N. Michigan, Toledo, OH 43604 USA.
At the windy/rainy opening night of the exhibition on April 15, I got a chance to see all the art and really enjoyed the mix of styles and mediums from the various artists. The show certainly represents a variety of art that is more forward looking and contemporary, thus, very little influence of recent past movements and trends such as Neo-Pop Art, Graffiti/Street Art, Pop-Surrealism, etc. Neo-Abstract allusions abound with many of the pieces, though a somewhat more figurative approach. It was a national mix of artists, however the pieces that stood out the most to me were from fellow midwesterners.
My art would make up the “decay” portion of the three-pronged theme of the exhibition. I moved away from the conceptual decay idiom several years ago so all the work is from three or more years prior. Though the work still feels more fresh and applicable than ever before given the rapid collapse of world economies from the Great Recession since the art was created. To us in the industrial midwestern United States, scenes of infrastructural decay and urban blight have not only become common place, but it has defined who we are for many of us. The glistening industrial metropolis of our parents and grandparents generations, one full of hope, promise and affirmation of the American Dream, has given way to ruins, high unemployment and a generation that has moved beyond despondent. At least this is what I take away from the euphemism “decay” when applied to art and culture.
The exhibition runs through June 24, 2011 and is free and open to the public.
March 25, 2011
Vore Convent
Vore Convent
Dimensions: 16.5″ x 20.5″
Medium: Oil on acrylic sheet panel
February 28, 2011
Saturn V
- Saturn V
Dimensions: 25.25″ x 33.5″
Medium: Oil on board
From Chaos, You enter my dreams like a river of piss, unbathed with an unclean mind. The rage of 10,000 dying lunatics cannot match your loathsomeness. You know the length of eternity, and eternity is your wait. My time is fleeting, but my love is not. O Father of Great Jupiter, Son of Uranus! Most Mighty Saturn, hear me!
In Hesiod’s Theogony, an account of the creation of the universe and Jupiter’s rise to power, Saturn is mentioned as the son of Uranus (the Greek equivalent of Roman Caelus), the heavens, and Gaia (the Greek equivalent of Terra), the Earth. Hesiod is an early Greek poet and rhapsode, who presumably lived around 700 BC. He writes that Saturn seizes power, castrating and overthrowing his father Uranus. However, it was foretold that one day a mighty son of Saturn would in turn overthrow him, and Saturn devoured all of his children when they were born to prevent this. Saturn’s wife, Rhea (often identified with the Roman goddess Ops), hid her sixth child, Jupiter, on the island of Crete, and offered Saturn a large stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in his place; Saturn promptly devoured it. Jupiter later overthrew Saturn and the other Titans, becoming the new supreme ruler of the cosmos. This was the end of the Golden Age of Man.
