interpretations

Androphobes (purporting themselves to be feminists) have a problem with what they view as an apparent  "misogyny" in my paintings. This misinterpretation usually arises on the misobservation that the figures are being dismembered. To quote one such unfortunate androphobe:

"It  [my art] is gratuitously misogynistic, and objectifies women in a sadistic fashion.  Perhaps you
might like to make a few self-portraits and include them in your scenes."
 

Well, the figures are recombined with other elements. They METAMORPHOSE into:

A/  their constituent anatomical parts: flesh & bone. We are after-all cadavers in waiting;
B/   the machinery we have invented: we are prisoners of our own inventions rather than victims of malevolent external forces.

the art is not  a celebration of mutilating figures.......the figures are not metaphorical voodoo dolls......
 

....... contrast the androphobic against a "homosexual interpretation" of my art-work :

Homosexual acquaintances once lamented on the absence of the male figure in my paintings. In contrast to the above androphobic female they would prefer to see the male represented within my compositions.

CONCLUSION:

Although I could use male figures in my paintings I prefer to use the female. I actually prefer drawing the female nude to the male.... just like I prefer not to draw butterfly wings, flowers, portraits, or non-figurative abstract works. Artists do have their personal preferences of subject. Even Michelangelo, it must be remembered,  worked with male models to the extent that when sculpting female forms like Night for the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici  he simply  ADDED female breasts to a male chest like some tumourous growth!

Another interesting homosexual perspective

Up until around 1996 my paintings were about being born.  Consequently the viewer as well as the artist (me) were represented as being born. The babies/foetuses were not a celebration of heterosexuality  but a portrait of the viewer! It would seem that by including foetuses etc. that my art was seen as excluding a homosexual component and was nothing other than a celebration of heterosexuality ...  However, even homosexuals are born to a woman. Even so, heterosexuality per se is not the issue. It never has been.
 

KITSCH

Such analyses of my work do not seem to extend to contemplating what I would paint were I to paint my figures otherwise - whole.

It would certainly make life easier if all I did was paint whole figures plonked onto a scene. It would certainly save me the inordinate amount of time I do spend trying to work out new & inventive means of integrating my figures into the mechanical/skeletal components of my paintings.

In Australia surrealist artist James Gleeson went through a period in the 1960s where he painted muscle-men flying around in the sky leaving vapour trails. Very kitsch fantasy art (as distinct from fantastic art).  This work is very close in appearance to the work by fantasy artist Boris Vellejo - if one replaced the male figures for females.  Indeed these works by Gleeson, along with the works of Vallejo, are almost homosexual & heterosexual variations on the same theme.

These artists represent the figure whole. Their art seems to be no more than a celebration of the sexual energy they feel the figure exudes. It is fantasy art which has no place in my work.
 

The viewer can put his/her own spin on my paintings. That is up to them. However that does not mean that their own spin is at all relevant to my work. Indeed the viewer's spin can only be a reflection of the viewer's own prejudices and perspectives. And, if the viewer does not like my art  they can simply find art that they do like.

19/5/2001

Is it any wonder then that the art that has proven itself popular to collectors is nonfigurative? It does not affront the senses or sensibilities; works well in decorating corporate walls; is egalitarian, not "elitist", as anyone can do it; can be argued to be "avant-garde" as it rejects "traditional" representational art, thus appealing to "intellectuals" & theorists...

An entire industry of galleries, critics, investment bodies and artists has grown around nonfigurative art. They all have a huge financial and intellectual interest in promoting their point of view. Were it all to collapse the vacuous arguments of the arts intelligentsia would be exposed for what they are & entire collections rendered worthless, not priceless. 24/5/2001