RAP-ART

RAP-ART - RAP-ART

Preamble - Préambule

Humans are for the most part incredibly wondrous beasts and yet, at times, we are the most horrendous creatures on earth. Though it may not be good to belabor the point it is always good to take note. Artists throughout the centuries have always done so and possibly that is why our profession is viewed with fear by those who would rather that we should not know about what they would consider we should not know.

Pour la plupart, les humains sont des bêtes incroyablement merveilleuses et pourtant, nous sommes parfois les créatures les plus horribles de la planète. Sans s'obsséder, il est toujours bon d’en prendre note.

À travers les siècles, les artistes l'ont toujours fait - ont toujours observer les moeurs, les habtudes, les penchants, les violences individuelles et collectives. . . Et c'est peut-être pour cette raison que notre profession est perçue avec crainte par ceux et celles en autorité qui préféreraient que nous ne sachions pas ce que nos têtes nous encouragent de savoir.

1995

Moi - oil / huile - 24" x 36" - 1995
Private collection privée

In the mid 90s I realized changes were occurring which would alter our futures - the futures of us all. A normalized, if not yet collective whining, self indulgent devolving "moi" was becoming more than noticeable. The maso-narcissistic descent into the nothingness of a selfie-centredness (yet without cell camera) was already beginning to show.

1996

Anorexia - oil / huile - 40" x 36" - 1996

The concept of “Fatness” is simply born of the mirror image of the shrinking psychological self within a ’fat’ obsessed world in crisis. The dimensions of the composition for this painting were established in the shape and length of the cheval mirror within a much larger and darker perceived world space. That mirror reflects back to us the complete image of the disappearing (importance) of the physical self while the incessant search for the self we dream of discovering is, more often than not, obsessionally distorted rather than passionate and self respecting. And while this acidic soup eats away at our core, it dictates the parameters of our psychological interpretations of the self. Anorexia is beauty become evil become beautifully evil.

1997

Asclepius Falls At The Hand of Caduceous
oi/huile - 40" x 40" - 1997

* Asclepius: god of healing. His single raw staff entwined by a single sacred snake of healing has always been the correct symbol of healers.

* Caduceous: a magic wand entwined by two snakes and winged as was Mercury, is sometimes mistaken (even by medical associations) as the symbol of medicine and healing. In reality it has always been mythologically associated with and symbol for merchants and thieves. Over time, some pharmaceutical companies and the military have adopted the symbol whose concept of medicating has overtaken the science and art of healing and changed the relationship of healer and patient to that of medicator and client.

And so it came to pass that bottled calm, security and happiness was introduced to quell manufactured anxieties and fears introduced and promoted in order to maintain the submissiveness of an increasingly turbulent society and self-harming .

1999

Boy Dreams - oil/huile - 24" x 18" - 1999
Private Collection privée

A boy dreams of being a man who dreams of being a boy. . . Who. . .

From birth boys look up to find their hero and too often end up looking down in discouragement. That man a boy dreams about and about becoming is always first and foremost his father. And, again, too often the father doesn't notice because so often he is busy dreaming of being the boy he once was - dreaming about the father he wants needed and needed to become - and still does.

2003

A Pall Of Vengeance Is In The Air -
oil/huile - 24" x 18" - 2003

If normal is "what there is the most of", the beginning of our 21st century has normalized fear and envy and anger and most especially vengeance. The disintegration of democratic politics (by the people, for the people) and the overwhelming powers inherent in corporate "authority" (money) are at the root of all of our self-destructive traits.

Politics has never been perfect - neither has democracy. But. . . they have become worse in that they no longer serve anyone else but those who choose to rule rather than lead; those who profit rather than serve. Laws no longer hold sway. Rather it is accounting which regulates our every step. Authority now lies in the act of counting and accounting for the counting and formulating policy based on the accounting of those accounts. Basically, the actual "raison d'être" of leadership has disappeared. We are no longer citizens but rather physical SIN numbers..

Fear, left and right extremism, micro-aggression mentalities, vengeance on those deemed to be, by their very presence, eroding our freedoms (?); impositions and demands that all adhere to homogenous populist opinions and beliefs as "truths". From the beginning of our new cenutry we have become, by our own hand, less free.

2006

Victims R Us - oil/huile - 36" x 12" - 2006

Life presents itself to the "west" that we are in this world, as a wondrous pink ooze of pleasures and always "easily" attainable happiness. But then. . . Without (inner) joy, (outer) happiness is an illusion.

Where microaggressions really come from: A sociological account: http://righteousmind.com/where-microaggressions-really-come-from/

Victim Mentality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality

2007

Us & Them - oil/huile -10" x 44" - 2007

A basic statement; a sign of our times.

Birth Of A Male Narcissist - oil/huile - 30" x 36" - 2007

Nice - oil/huile - 24" x 30" - 2007

Childhood is in turmoil because parenting is - and not the other way around.

2008

Silence - Digital print/composition numérique -
17" x 11" - 2008

Being noncommittal is where our era stands - awaiting a fate we could govern if only we would choose to. Rien à ajouter

2010

A Thinking Soldier Is A Dangerous Soldier - oil/huile - 40" x 60" - 2010

In a democracy, soldiers are citizens whose job it is to protect their society from terrorists from without. Citizens are soldiers whose job it is to protect their society from terrorists from within - unless, that is, we've been lured into not caring, not thinking and soon, not seeing anything wrong that needs correcting; not seeing anything good that needs protecting. We are always dangerous when we think. . . We are dangerous to those who need us to not think.

The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.”
― Oswald Spengler

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."
~George McGovern

Nothing is impossible to authoritative entities as long as we restrict and/or withhold thinking. - 2019

2011

Evil - Digital Print/Composition numérique - 17" x 11" - 2010

Evil thrives on submission and victimhood. It cannot abide strength, determination and courage. It feeds on the weak, enlisting their help and that of those who profit from its existence - this in order to maintain its unrelenting stranglehold on our nations. lts one and only goal is to continue to frighten, to manipulate and to dominate us and our every choice and our every belief that what we have so much of is no longer enough and we want more and are willing to give everything up for the nothingness of those self-obsessed cravings. It is only when evil is seen as nothing more than a crushable bully that it will wane. Because then and only then will we see the true nature of humanity and the true nature of God in whatever form God takes on. Evil is not omnipotent unless it is allowed to be and unless it has taken away from us the essential essence of what it is to be who we are. - 2010

Word - Digital print / Composition numérique - 4" x 12" - 2011

A word is a mysterious entity which, when unused in either written, read or spoken forms, loses all of its inherent powers, its actual meaning - becoming what we want it to be even though it then no longer is what we need it to be.

2013

Madiba - Oil/huile - 40" x 60" - 2013 -
Private collection privée

Madiba was created on the day I heard on the studio radio that Nelson Mandela had passed away. I knew he was affectionately and respectfully referred to as Madiba (derived from his name and standing) or from Tata (father). The name just came out in a brightness against the black, probably for the mood conveyed by his passing, or black for the people crying. The tears, it seems ran down the canvas all on their own as I speedily laid everything in quickly. I didn't want to think about what I was doing.
The one clean blood red line, I guess, simply appears as a symbol of his giving of himself willingly It seems to cry for both the perils faced by the blacks through apartheid and for the ignorance and fears of the long held white dominance. I guess, the one red bloodline is his and ours to contemplate. Because he suffered, the rest of South Africa no longer had to.

2017

I, Me, "Moi" - Digital print / Composition numérique - 10" x 28" - 2017

After awhile there is no one else, just us, just our navels, just our needs, just our beingness, just our cravings and envies and jealousies and pouts. . . And the exaggerated sufferings of and greatness that is moi has reached a zenith of self-aggrandizement and destruction not possible at any other time in history.

2018

Lügenpresse - Digital Print/ Composition numérique - 4" x 12" - 2018

Nothing has changed. Same thing. Different place. Different language. Same death knell.

Thoughts And prayers. . . - oil/huile - 24" x 24" - 2018

Once again. . . Useless thoughts, useless sentiment, phony love, and more children dead. . . Untilnext time. . .

By the millions, we rally daily to support our sports teams and yet, six months down the line, fail miserably in the act of remembering all of our innumerable Feb 14, 2018s.

Lockstep. . . - Digital Print/Composition numérique - 84" x 60" (includes sound track of endless soldier steps on the pavement.) - 2018

In our quest to believe we are free, even when our anxieties and worries and fears and obsessions with self esteem rather than self-respect tell us otherwise, how odd it is that the sounds of parading soldier boots become tyrannical; fearsome. . . Extreme nationalism does this to the hearts and souls of even the most hardened hearts. . . .

Old McDonald. . . - oil/huile - 36" x 24" - 2019

When opinions and beliefs are translated into commanding "truths". . . Truth is no longer possible to know to understand to recognize even.