MYTH PAINTINGS
'Myth Of The Elephant And The Blind Twin-Tailed Mermaid', 2010-2023
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 250 x 150 cm
Location: Gallery Of Tropical Surrealism, Ubud-Bali, Indonesia.
The ‘Myth of The Elephant and The Blind, Twin-Tailed Mermaid’ is primarily about the male-female dynamic.
As such, like all myths, it transcends specific national or cultural limits. Metaphor and meaning are interlaced with contradictions and dualities. The elephant and mermaid appear simultaneously as sculptures: damaged inanimate objects yet also living beings whose injuries echo the human capacity to survive and continue living, loving, emerging, breathing and transforming.
A mermaid's natural habitat is the ocean yet the elephant-magician inspires her to rise from the sea and join him and in a moment of sublime elation and magic she grows an additional tail and acquires the ability to hover and float over the earth. Choosing the high desert among mountains close to the pure clear sky as their abode the elephant and mermaid become partners for all eternity.
The painting was badly damaged by white ants and the damp tropical humid climate while stored for several years at my studio-gallery in Bali and had to be cut down in scale and re-stretched. The process of reworking itself was experienced by me as a kind of regeneration or rebirth of the picture which led to a strengthening and transformation of the formal elements - e.g., colors, tones, space, forms, shapes, lines, textures and a deepening and extension of content, meaning and expression.
'Ouroboros The King', 1998
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100 x 120 cm
Location: Gallery Of Tropical Surrealism , Ubud-Bali, Indonesia.
Ouroboros is the snake that eats its own tail. The image appears in numerous cultures throughout history and the world, signifying the eternal life force that is both creative and destructive. Here this great mythic figure is the crowned ruler of his immediate environment. To dream or hallucinate this image may signify an unconscious or subconscious need or wish to transform the self. The image may resonate in a viewer’s mind or soul, indicating that he she may need or desire to undergo some kind of mental/spiritual regeneration. As such the picture acts as a metaphor for the process of psychoanalysis itself. Certainly the image serves for me to express various deep sensibilities and emotions that have long been alive within my own psyche throughout my life. Pure liquid pigments allow me to achieve the power, density and variety of shades needed to encapsulate this kind of universal symbol with the cogency and beauty it seems to demand. As do the sharp, biting black lines.
‘Messengers Of The Gods at Sunset', 2021
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100 x 100 cm
Location: Gallery Of Tropical Surrealism , Ubud-Bali, Indonesia.
‘Cosmic Reflection', 2021
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 125 x 125 cm
Location: Gallery Of Tropical Surrealism , Ubud-Bali, Indonesia.
Archetypal symbols vie with deep personal references for my attention and that of the viewer.
I paint outside under the sky and attempt to reconcile such opposites and phenomena as birth, love, sexual reproduction, ageing, death, body and spirit and the limitlessness cosmos.
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Title: 'Ganesha With Flailing Ears' 2017
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Size: 200 x 120 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
Title: 'Androgynous Gemini' 2014
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Size: 228 x 98 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
'Poseidon Calling The Ocean' 2010
Media: Oil paint on canvas
Size: 200 x 120 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
Title: 'Rhythm Of The Libido’ 2008
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Size: 100 x 86 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
Title: ‘Ritual of Roots And Rhythms’, 2008
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Size: 100 x 80 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
'Among The Elephants' 2009
Medium: oil paint on canvas
Size: 200 x 160 cm
Location: Private Collection, Australia.
'Myth of the Floating Anima', 2012
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 150 x 250 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
'Medusa', 2010
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 230 x 100 cm
Location: Gallery of Tropical Surrealism, Bali
'The Swan Song', 2005
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 200 x 150 cm
Location: Gallery Of Tropical Surrealism, Ubud-Bali, Indonesia.
In European classical mythology swans are mute and sing only when dying, at which point they are reputed to sing beautifully – hence the phrase SWAN SONG. Swans are said to love so deeply they mate for life and are monogamous. In mythology the mute swan is one of the sacred birds of Apollo and a symbol of light.
Like so much of my work, this painting offers many points of access whereby individual viewers might identify and relate to the image on a conscious, subconscious or unconscious level.
