DEM-BONES. Acrylic.
Dem Bones was inspired from a detail in another work of mine, a large coloured Geisha painting named Skulls, Cars, Gods and Stars. Amongst my reference images I accidently pinned a photo of bleached cars in the desert next to bones in an Ossuary and was struck by their superficial similarity.
In painting skulls and cars together as a pattern, they appeared somewhat elegiac, an image that seemed to symbolise modern man in a bizarre afterlife, the way for example the statue of Anubis connects to the Ancient Egyptian tomb.
As I worked, the skull's jaw lines produced an unexpected smile, an implied a black comedy. Perhaps there is in our foolhardy use of the car, an ecological outcome that may well lead to our farcical extinction. In a recent Geisha painting, the skulls and cars were one of many symbols making up an almost cinematic work, caked together in a crazed city as one might see intense layers of fossils or the connecting bivouac's of interlocking soldier ants.
During the making of Skull Cars God and Stars and later Dem-Bones I was intrigued to read of the Anthropocene, the geological layer of artefacts that scientists believe will mark the era of Homo Sapiens.
Artistic licence aside regarding relative scale, I employed my past study and fascination with geology to imagine (in extending the skulls to skeletons) a rather chaotic party, maybe where Bosch meets Gatsby meets Street Art.
As I worked, the skull's jaw lines produced an unexpected smile, an implied a black comedy. Perhaps there is in our foolhardy use of the car, an ecological outcome that may well lead to our farcical extinction. In a recent Geisha painting, the skulls and cars were one of many symbols making up an almost cinematic work, caked together in a crazed city as one might see intense layers of fossils or the connecting bivouac's of interlocking soldier ants.
During the making of Skull Cars God and Stars and later Dem-Bones I was intrigued to read of the Anthropocene, the geological layer of artefacts that scientists believe will mark the era of Homo Sapiens.
Artistic licence aside regarding relative scale, I employed my past study and fascination with geology to imagine (in extending the skulls to skeletons) a rather chaotic party, maybe where Bosch meets Gatsby meets Street Art.
The limbs also reminded me of interlinked soldier ants, perhaps paying homage to our own social complexity and aggression that we don’t always appreciate unless seen from afar.
At the time I had planned only to paint a decorative frame for Dem Bones and make a very different interior but then started the process of imagining various human archetypes, some of which I designed and others imagined “on the wisp of a cloud” as it were. I soon also became hooked by the strange and developing patternicity.
In the material sense the work became to me a satire (and opposite to) contemporary art’s obsession with singular logos, vast scale and expensive manufacture.
In conclusion Dem Bones sits at some axis between morbidly and farce, a writhing epitaph to both the comedic and the profane.
At the time I had planned only to paint a decorative frame for Dem Bones and make a very different interior but then started the process of imagining various human archetypes, some of which I designed and others imagined “on the wisp of a cloud” as it were. I soon also became hooked by the strange and developing patternicity.
In the material sense the work became to me a satire (and opposite to) contemporary art’s obsession with singular logos, vast scale and expensive manufacture.
In conclusion Dem Bones sits at some axis between morbidly and farce, a writhing epitaph to both the comedic and the profane.
DEM - BONES BEYOND...
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In 2015 at the RWA open I linked a QR code of the painting to a web site making a light interactive quiz to guess listed characters in the painting. Although there is an underlying darkness to the work it can also be read a casual way. The below film was the cheat sheet!
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THE OLIGARCH
In the whole painting there was a single character facing inwards that had previously been "The Loner". I decided to cover "him" in gold leaf and re-name the painting "The Oligarch", the implication being that a skeleton made of gold is as useless as one made of bone in this imagined place.
THE STUDIO TABLE
Dem - Bones printed on my studio table.
