teetotal sum of things.

Windows media
I am teetotal as of yesterday, i wonder how social situations will be now i am no longer able to liquidate my anxietys.

sincerity irony 4

text peice, work in progress

windows media 24/10/11

Should i place explanations of the ideas behind my work?.

I am thinking of putting a short paragraph about the pieces.

The rutting instinct.

Aborto.

windows paint 10/10/11
I based this fictitious leaflet on a series of backstreet abortion flyers from South Africa, printed by what i am assuming is not a medical doctor, though he is using the term 'Dr Success'.
The grammer is intentional. And the number is lifted straight from the original flyers.
I created this piece in response to the challenge recently to have religious advisor's replace trained counsellors in sexual health clinics.

Below is a link to the original flyer and the photographer to took it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/citydavies/4579725550/

'Bill Hensons court of public opinion'-nsfw-subject to edit.

The genesis of this collage came  about because some of my work was vandalised by a student. This shocked me, and i wondered about the history of censorship and why people choose to engage in direct action rather than dialogue. Below is one of the painting that was vandalised.







The

In my research of censorship, i found most disruption of an artists work comes from small independant protest groups. Like the National legion of Decency

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legion_of_Decency  and the Catholic Legion of Decency, a hugely powerfull protest group from within the American Catholic church. It brings me to one of the areas of interest in my art, what if 'offensive' and what is art. And do people who are offended, have the right to stop other adults from being exposed to it.

Bill Henson is a photographic artist whose images of adolescents are beautiful and troubling, and deal with the transitions we find ourselves in whether adult or child.

Since he sometimes photographs them in states of undress people have accused him of producing child pornography. He has had shows stopped and work seized, but in court his art is always accepted as art and not as pornography involving children.

In investigating this case, i found the same tabloid newspapers that condemn art that shows images of children, show in almost every issue images of teen stars in bikinis, in states of undress. They use a fake moral concern in order to justify leering over images of teenagers. This hypocrisy was something i wanted to explore.

The woman hovering over the chaos is the journalist Miranda Devine who without seeing the show itself started a campaign to have his work banned.

The links are to the case and Hensons work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2008/may/27/thesephotographsarentsexual
http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425618355/untitled.html
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What do you think of Hensons work?. Do you think he should be able to photo images of children,even if their parents give consent and are on the set, what do you think of the journalists who sell papers based on condemning art they have not seen?.
Do you think we can look at images of children now, without filtering it through our fear of pedophilia?.
I would love to hear your comments, please leave them , you can do anon if you wish.

'Can you meet their eyes in your irony?'.

Poe's law comes in to effect when people wear Manson t -shirts.  And everyone makes bank on a cult who killed a pregnant women and eight others in the most brutal of circumstances.

This work developed from a flikr page i looked at in which a young woman proudly sported a Charles Manson t shirt.  Understanding the distancing nature of pop culture from its original source i none the less directed her to a website detailing the real facts of the case and its effects on the victims families. She felt that she had a right to wear the t shirt, and did not feel as thought wearing it meant anything. I wonder if she would wear a Hitler t shirt, or if a local rapist was released early would his face adorn her chest?. It struck me that she wore Manson not because of his crimes or those of his followers but because he fit the definiton of iconic. She wore it to appear cool to her peer group, which could be adolescent bravado, and the testing o societal limits. Paraded as he is on television constantly, with no context to the sadism of his acts and how it effected their relatives.Manson is a cartoon so there is no emotional connection, no empathy or understanding of what he did.
In researching this murder memorabilia i found a lot of money being made on the back of  crime and violence, with most of it fitting the definiton of exploitation.
As you can see from the collage, the people using Manson and therefore his victims, are often large corporations.

I will be designing a t shirt based on this art , hopefully without Manson on the front of it.

Personal piece: 'Wadsworth's life constant'.

Digital media 6/10/11
re-edited for size.

'penny auntie'

axel rose is an anagram of oral sex. i wanted to include that as text in the work but im trying to limit the amount of text i show in these zine peices.

This is a theme ill be returning to, there is always a nasty taste in the water when it comes to the depiction of people we don't like. We caricature them , rendering them less than human, playing up  their animal characteristics, this sublimates our empathy. Women tend to be on the receiving end of this throughout media, and i saw it a lot after the terrorist attacks in London aimed at the ethnic and cultural other. 

dancing in my bedroom to lady gaga

brush and ink on illustration paper
2/10/11

im rreally pleased with this one.