The Long and Winding Road
First off — I am pleased to announce that my Rock(ing) Art Series is about to come to full fruition as I am almost done with painting no. 10 (Queen)! I have already booked the exhibition space at the Karoo Art Hotel for 23rd December 2016 (5pm ’til late).
We’re going to have a rocking party afterwards, with myself and Templeton performing one song, from each artist featured in this collection, live! So, if you happen to be in the area — do come and join the festivities and see these paintings in the flesh.
You can view the whole ‘Rocking Art’ process HERE. For those of you who don’t know, my Rocking Art Series — in a nutshell — is about subliminally painting to music (individual artists/bands) to see what emerges from sound to vision and emotion.
Back to Bowie
Being the absolute mampara that I am, I unfortunately deleted most of my process photo’s from my smartphone before uploading them to my computer. So, the result is I have only got photo’s of the last stages of the painting…sorry.
I will be diving into the emotions and key phrases that came up whilst painting this at the end of the photographic process below. Need I say, this one was very strange and opened the doors to many a question.
Here are the photo’s (some close ups included):
And…ta-daa…the final product (as hung against my freshly painted green lounge wall):
Quite a lot to process in this artwork, isn’t there? Here are some close ups of the finished painting:
Full view:
Click on picture above to take you to print sales. The original will only be available on opening night of the exhibition at the end of the year. If you wish to reserve the original, please inbox me for price and information (cheriedirksen@yahoo.com).
Now for the emotions behind the art/music:
Having a Bowie Movement
The painting’s name is Unhinging Society — pretty apt for the late great Mr. Jones.
The keywords that came up while I was painting were:
- Anarchy — definitely no playing by the rules!
- Disjointed (Bowie? Surely not! 😉 )
- Wyrd (read more about being Wyrd HERE — indeed a Bowie trait)
- White Blood (?) not red…I got a very vivid indication that I must use NO red whatsoever in this painting. Strange, no?
- Mantis (I shit you not) — perhaps why the green hue was a very big theme throughout.
Riveting Revelations: Where’s Wally?
Can you spot Wally? He is in this picture 😉
A while ago, we got a visitor — a praying mantis — that made its home on our bathroom windowsill. We named him Wally because he was such an evasive character! He would literally play hide and seek with us.
Every morning we’d come into the bathroom for morning ablutions and say, ‘where’s Wally?’
One day, when I was getting vexed because I couldn’t find him, he jumped into the basin from the blinds where he was hiding as if to say, ‘Ta-daa! Got you!’.
Bear with me…this does have relevance to my painting.
I made the sign (in the pic to your right) because a nature-loving friend of mine used my bathroom one day and I saw him carrying something out my front door cupped between his hands. When I asked him nervously what he had there, he showed me and it was Wally!
He thought he had strayed into the house and that I might kill it for fear of creepy crawlies. I had to explain to him that Wally was kind of my dearly beloved pet.
Time to Say Goodbye
Needless to say, I loved Wally.
He disappeared one day and I was heart broken. He used to go out of the window occasionally but he always returned.
Two weeks later he crawled back up our bath plug. I knew it was him as he had a distinctive mark on his back. He looked worse for wear and I held him in my hand. He managed to slowly lift his head and look up at me…and then he died.
I promise you, this is 100% true — I couldn’t make this stuff up.
This happened about 6 months prior to me beginning this painting.
To My Insectoidal Prophetic Surprise
This Bowie painting is crawling with mantis-like creatures. Yeah, I know some of you will say it was Wally subconsciously ‘praying’ (he he, couldn’t resist!) on my mind but maybe Wally was a prelude portend to this painting?
He came to stir up some cosmic knowledge.
Maybe the Universe (or at least, Mother Nature via my garden) brought me Wally for a bigger picture (pun most definitely intended) of what was to transpire — after all, stranger things have happened.
Wally was an omen.
Loving the Alien?
These mantis beings issued out of the painting by themselves — I just helped define the shapes I saw.
It is also interesting to note that in South Africa we have a race of people called the Khoikhoi/Khoisan/San/Hottentot (the originators of Rock Art albeit in a different form 😉 ). These people have worshiped the praying mantis for centuries as a shape-shifting god named Cagn/Kaggen/Kaang. Read more HERE.
Maybe there’s a little something ‘alien’ to all of this? Read more about the alleged Mantis Extraterrestrial Race HERE. What I loved about looking up this information is that it states in this article that this particular alien race’s main focus is ‘weaving color and sound to create and enliven the light web of the universe’. I promise, I only looked up this information after the painting was complete.
The article also states that star seeds of the mantis race born prior to the 90’s had a hard adjustment period in life (very Bowie-esque).
“They felt that if anyone really knew what they are like, they would run, so they hid their inner truth in some way. It has been a difficult task for their angels and other guides to get them to open up and share what they came to share. Once they do open up, their intensity, art, and ability to know what needs to be done to create the perfect environment is uncanny. They are usually artistic in some way. They are writers, musicians, poets, designers of space and events. They have a knack for bringing pieces of a puzzle together and making it sing. Their gifts lie in bringing energy, aesthetic appeal, and vitality to whatever they do. They are here to use these gifts to infuse higher frequencies into hearts and environments through form, sound and color.“
Perhaps David Bowie truly a space oddity — the man who fell to Earth. He certainly wrote a lot about aliens.
“The Mantis beings are masters with vibrations of sound and color. They use this mastery to heal and create. They are artists of universal light. They dance through frequencies and alter their surroundings as they do so.”
“Sensitive to sound, color, and vibrational nuances, luminous, spiritual, healers, graceful, fluid, artistic, penetrating, influential.”
Maybe I’m grasping at straws here and the appearance of the mantis in the painting are just remnants of my short love affair with Wally…but imagine if there was more to it?
I also got a great sense (from the painting) of bucking authority (showing the bird!), the freedom of unreservedly expressing yourself no matter how strange, going against the norm and of trying to inject abnormal into society just to bring about a bit of normality (if that makes sense?).
Thanks for coming on the journey with me!
Disclaimer: I’m allowed to be loony — I’m an artist!
Dedication: To my dearly departed Wally and the main inspiration of my youth, David Bowie (Jones).
Other articles you may enjoy:
10 Bands, 10 Paintings…Let the Rock Art Begin!
The Grand Band Reveal is Today!
Radiohead — A Teaser Pictorial ‘Rock Art’ Peek
What Radiohead Looks Like Through The End of My Brush
Song Playlist — Radiohead Albums That Made The Art
What The Beatles Look Like From the End of my Paintbrush
Rock Art Series Painting no. 3 — Jeff Buckley ‘Raw’
How I Got ‘Raw’ With Jeff Buckley
‘Dancing in the Void’ — Pink Floyd Rock Art Painting No.4 Photographs
Painting Pink Floyd — Soldiering Through the Minefield of Emotion
‘Dangerous Love’ — Skunk Anansie Rock Art Painting No. 5
Rock Art Painting no. 6 — Templeton: The Photographic Process and Grand Reveal!
What on Earth is a ‘Chaoskampf Demiurge’? You Seriously Need to Know This!
The Resurrection of Muse — Rock Art Painting no. 7 Photographs
Decoding Muse (Rock Art Painting no. 7) — ‘Resurrection’
Cold Burn to Nirvana? Rock Art Painting No.8 is Something Different (Photo’s Included)
Get Me OUT Of Purgatory! The Emotions Behind the Nirvana Painting, ‘Cold Burn’
Cherie Roe Dirksen 