Local image #158
2026, Acrylic on board, 30x30cm
3 April 2026
The Ecstasy by John Donne. Beautiful but haunting and a bit terrifying. Imagery of a couple holding hands and intergrafting, growing into one another like plants would, many exploring tendrils feeling their way around each other, becoming one. Emptying out the body, the body dying, lifeless without the soul, still, unmoving, corpse-like, while the souls float above, finding each other in love. The embodiment of love in our bodies, the place where love becomes something our senses can acknowledge, where our aesthetic is grown in a dialectic, the body becoming like a book, a place where love becomes legible, where it can be shared with others.
The present is this painting. The way that I can access the present is this painting. It is my key into the present. I look and see that it is good. I look and find the surface interesting enough to look some more. The diluted paint hides my clumsy brushstrokes somewhat — I like that. The destructive wash of broad strokes applied vertically over my painting efforts gives me some surprising things to look at. There is much that is unintentional within the intentional. In-tension-all. The erect along with the error. I have painted another schizophrenic disembodied eye. The image in the eye seems a bit like a distorted naked man. I can tell by the shortened torso and the elongated legs that the eye is looking at his feet, at what he does, his action — as opposed to looking and attempting to see his heart. I think this judging eye may be on the right track. I still see something like a bird, a raptor, an eagle (USA), killing a horse-like or ass-like beast (Iran, or rather the IRGC). And Wallace (England or Starmer) eating popcorn? Starmer looks terrified as one of the giants he was riding on collapses. I guess you can tell whose side I am on. This must be the weirdest political cartoon I have ever seen.
The Ecstasy by John Donne. Beautiful but haunting and a bit terrifying. Imagery of a couple holding hands and intergrafting, growing into one another like plants would, many exploring tendrils feeling their way around each other, becoming one. Emptying out the body, the body dying, lifeless without the soul, still, unmoving, corpse-like, while the souls float above, finding each other in love. The embodiment of love in our bodies, the place where love becomes something our senses can acknowledge, where our aesthetic is grown in a dialectic, the body becoming like a book, a place where love becomes legible, where it can be shared with others.
The present is this painting. The way that I can access the present is this painting. It is my key into the present. I look and see that it is good. I look and find the surface interesting enough to look some more. The diluted paint hides my clumsy brushstrokes somewhat — I like that. The destructive wash of broad strokes applied vertically over my painting efforts gives me some surprising things to look at. There is much that is unintentional within the intentional. In-tension-all. The erect along with the error. I have painted another schizophrenic disembodied eye. The image in the eye seems a bit like a distorted naked man. I can tell by the shortened torso and the elongated legs that the eye is looking at his feet, at what he does, his action — as opposed to looking and attempting to see his heart. I think this judging eye may be on the right track. I still see something like a bird, a raptor, an eagle (USA), killing a horse-like or ass-like beast (Iran, or rather the IRGC). And Wallace (England or Starmer) eating popcorn? Starmer looks terrified as one of the giants he was riding on collapses. I guess you can tell whose side I am on. This must be the weirdest political cartoon I have ever seen.