Paintings
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A statement From Laura Molina on the death of Dave Stevens, AKA “Naked Dave”
Posted by Laura Molina on 13 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Paintings, Digital Art, websites, Figurative, Death, Muse, Dave Stevens, Naked Dave |
A statement from my internet art presentation, “Naked Dave”.
Dave Stevens died March 11, 2008.
My Naked Dave series has been a way for me to work out the anger, grief, and loss that my unfortunate relationship with Dave Stevens brought me. I was only 18 when I met him. I was not too much older than that when he fathered my child in 1978. The way he tried to bully me into getting an abortion during my pregnancy was nearly unforgivable. When I lost my baby through a miscarriage, the emotional pain I went through was so intense that I tried to block it out for several years afterward. But the psychic injury would not heal. I have been dealing with the effects this loss has had on me all my adult life. The whole situation made me despondent and depressed for many years. Dave helped me through none of this. Just knowing this person almost killed me.
In 1990, Dave began seeking me out again. He held out the possibility to me that we could reconcile and "carry on in a more positive light", as he put it. Seems we were at cross purposes. He attempted to apologize for trying to avoid his responsibilities in making me pregnant, but I wanted him to apologize for telling lies about me after it happened, the greater transgression in my eyes. Neither apology was accomplished. Instead of acknowledging the past and putting things right, he withdrew once the damage was done. Cast off the opportunity for forgiveness and reconciliation because I did not perceive that a brief embrace between us was supposed to serve for the entire apology and I was not supposed to press him for more than this. It wasn’t what happened in 1978 that inspired the series. We were young and stupid and that can be forgiven. No, it was the failed "reconciliation" of 1991 that lit the fire. I had been betrayed for the second time and I had to do something to save myself. I couldn’t walk the earth with murderous rage in my bosom and let it destroy everything around me. Naked Dave originally began as a way I could cathartically extract the poison this man brought into my life with his cowardice. Projecting his own unbearable guilt onto me and dismissing my existence by perpetrating a calumnious myth he invented that I am some kind of dangerous psychopath (like his dear friend, Bettie Page). These paintings became an entire genre of my life’s work, one that has brought me recognition. (Though, not the only recognized thing I’ve ever done with my creativity, that’s for sure…) The publication of my project brought a healing flow of empathy from others, but also vilification from comic book geeks and others too emotionally shallow to understand why I had the need to make this art and disseminate it on the web. Many missed the irony and took "The Angriest Woman in the World" dead literal as a personal vendetta as if there wasn’t enough to be angry about, just having to live as a woman in this screwed-up world. One woman’s revenge is another’s individual justice.
For many years I assumed that Dave was merely annoyed by my paintings of him but I was wrong. In recent years I discovered that he was deeply affected by what I had done. The only friend we still had in common beseeched me in an email to forgive him, but I found it impossible to do so without face to face reconciliation. In 2005, when I offered an olive branch to Dave through a go-between, he refused. True to his real nature, he claimed himself as the sole victim of this tragedy. As if my justified resentment sprang unmitigated by anything he had done, and that he bore no blame. Now that he is dead, face to face reconciliation and forgiveness between is not possible. I have to live with this reality and find the way to forgiveness without the reconciliation that I knew long ago I would never see.
My motives for this project have been the same since I started. To heal from the injury inflicted and diffuse my anger by having fun with my past pain. The issues this unfortunate relationship brought to my life, and my ability to process them through my art, still inspires me. When that changes, I will be done with this series. To aspire to make great art one must know truth, beauty, and love. My muse, as unwilling a subject as he may have been, was a muse nonetheless. The English Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a muse, Elizabeth Siddal. A recent book about her life has the following quotation from John Ruskin which took my breath away with it’s truth: "And yet Elizabeth had been loved tenderly, loved by the man and by the artist, which is to be loved twice, because painters have a tenderness for the creature that suddenly realizes for them, in an exquisite and living form, a long cherished dream, and lavish upon her a gaze that is more thoughtful, more intuitive and, to put it plainly, more charged with love than is possible for other men."
Below is a study for the last painting of the Naked Dave series. I have known since February of 2005 that Dave was ill with cancer. I was sworn to secrecy and struggled with thoughts of continuing the series altogether for this reason, but the heart sees what the conscious mind can’t bear to know. The monarchs are in the painting because the Aztecs believed they carried the souls of the dead. I started this latest painting in July 2005. I will continue to paint Dave until I am done and I can bring peace to myself.
Jet Martinez new studio works
Posted by jetrom on 30 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Uncategorized, Paintings |
The gestation of ‘Carnal-val’
Posted by SUNofMAN on 09 Jun 2007 | Tagged as: Paintings |
Back around ‘96 while taking the bus toward downtown LA I came upon a carnival at night. Carnivals have always fascinated me. With the energy and excitement of people coming together to enjoy a fantasy enviroment has always intrique me. I was especially impressed with the high contrast of moving color lights against the night sky that the rides would produce. At the same time we were having problems with the ongoing gang situation. An emotionally charge enviroment in its own right. And its this emotional charge which I was trying to capture in this piece. Also, I was reading ‘Terra Nuestra’ by Carlos Fuentes and came upon this passage in the text:
‘Did we come to laugh or cry? Are we dying or being born? Is it the beginning or the end, cause or solution? What are we living through?’
Ontological questions are always good to counter an emotional unbalance.
And so I included this in the overall image. The title: ‘Carnal-val is a play on the word Carnival. ‘Carnales’ in mexican slang means brotherhood. I eventually sold the piece to a collector in Phoenix who in turn submited it to a traveling exhibition on Chicano artists. Unfortunately, at the end of the show it was one of 7 pieces that were stolen. The piece has never been recover!
-Rene Angulo Trujillo, ‘OtrO’ Angulo
‘SUNofMAN’
Posted by SUNofMAN on 03 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Paintings, Poetry |
Oh Sun of Man
where have you gone?
oh Sun of Man
it’s been so long
imminent sunrays
it’s late may
Sun of Man
things have been inverted
and yet we’re not converted
to a most radiant stay
to the colors that may
Sun so bright
we forget to help you rise
a daily journey across the sky
sun of night
you’ve tripped into the maze
a shadow cast which bears a cross to die
Oh Sun of Man
lost hue between man and man
host of a simulated land
toast of a consumptive plan
Oh Sun of Man
where have you gone?
oh Sun of Man
it’s been so long
immaculate sunrays
it’s late may
Sun of Man
the ending of the beginning
my ears are still ringing
from that day they landed
from a soul fragmented
Sons and daughters so bright
we forget to help you rise
a daily journey across the sky
son of night
you’ve tripped into the maze
a vortex passage which signals good-bye
Oh Sun of Man
where have you gone?
oh Sun of Man
it’s been so long
transcendent sunrays
its late may
Dedicated to the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico
who’s mission in life is to help the sun rise!
artwork & text by Rene Angulo Trujillo ‘OtrO’ Angulo
A Compliment to “Dona Cien Besitos…”
Posted by isis on 01 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Paintings |
Doña Cien Besitos de la Noche 2002
Acrylic, Ink and Pencil on Paper 51″x80″
Isis Rodriguez San Francisco, Ca
Photo: Judy Reed
It’s a rare compliment when someone takes time out of their busy schedule to interpret my art and write something about it. In August of 2006, I was contacted by artist/philosopher, Rene´ Angulo Trujillo, thru email who attended my solo show at Patricia Correia Gallery in Santa Monica. Below is his initial email and writings concerning cartoons and my artwork:
Felizcidades!!!
I was recently at your opening in Santa Monica.
I was really impress with your work and of course inspired!
‘Dona Cien Besitos de la noche’ was especially enlighting.
my eye kept going to the bottom left corner where you redered the plant by the shoe.
you are an excellent drawer Isis! i notice you left preliminary sketches on the paper. a kind of ‘unconcsious residue’ if you will. i found these interesting as well. it showed your hand at work!
i concur on the difference bet illustration and cartooning. i recall in college an illustration is a rendering. the word render means ‘to complete’
note your attempt at including shadows & highlights - another dimention. as oppose to a cartoon which is flatered if you will.
lacking dimention! i like the way you play with this and take it to another level. including sarcassism, surrealism, etc. it sets me thinking about our history with animation and how we as artists deal with it in the fine arts field. gracias for the relevations. i too want to develope a series called ‘car-tunes’. with the prevelavence of the car culture here in la i want to develope some work which includes cars such as the low rider and on top of that some grafitos oriented drawing (tunes) with a kind philosophical statements. with my background in philosophy and theology it could be interesting. all the best! -rene´August 10, 2006
‘Lightness of Being’
“What is good is light; whatever is divine moves on tender feet”:
first principle of my aesthetics.
-NietzscheIsis,
My appeal toward your work could be for its ‘Lightness of Being’ quality.
What I mean is that traditionally painting has been a long process of
underlay’s and overlay’s. The process is slow and has traditionally given
us some remarkable results in terms of achieving dept.
But is this the only way?
In our searching and finding as creative beings to give the viewer another look, another perspective eye find what your doing rather interesting in terms of your Glyptoons! Cartoons have always been a ‘light affair’. There playfulness, youth oriented perspective highlighted and exploited by Walt Disney has left its mark on our collective unconscious. And as you say this new figurative mode can be revealing and fuel for the creative fire.
Going back to ‘Dona Cien Besitos de la Noche’I notice the absence of color. Color evokes emotion but in this piece the dominant black & white schema provokes thinking! Y los besitos en las alas. Portals to other worlds, esenas of dramatic events! What is it about high heels on the female figure which gives her such a ‘light’ feeling as if she were walking on air. As if a reminder to us men of the transcendental realm! Ah, but she is a butterfly in her seductive pose. Ready for takeoff! She is an enigma.
Of the air and of the earth. Or more precise a synthesis! Like the Pegasus she represents imagination! A powerful symbol to behold. A union of opposites! Like the foundation myth of Tenochtitlan/Mexico City. Of which the story goes the Mexica were to search for an island upon a lake in which they would find an eagle devouring a snake on a cactus. (note: Tenochtli=place of the cactus). Again; eagle symbolizing air and the snake earth. An attempt to unite what is above with what is below.
And all this on top of a lake. Water which has always represented rejuvenation-rebirth. In Jungian psychology water also represents the unconscious. I say this due to the fact that the Spanish were trying to repress that side of us which is native-primal! And yet that part of us which is archetypal tends to pop up into consciousness. La Virgin de Guadalupe is a perfect example. Going back to symbol. In German the word symbol is Sinnbild, a compound which strikingly denotes the two realms on which the symbol partakes: the Sinn, or meaning, pertains to the conscious, rational sphere, the Bild, or image, belongs to the irrational sphere, the unconscious. It is this twofold nature which make the symbol the most faithful expression of the psychic totality. We are symbol weavers Isis. And as you develop your iconography-your philosophy I hope the journey is a fulfilling and revealing one for you. All the power to you!-Rene´ Angulo Trujillo ‘OtrO Angulo’
http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/s/sunofman/