smack-jack

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nina hagen

2 things

it would behove me (and every artist on the planet) to remember:


"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."

~John Stuart Mill


and





we have fallen to a strange era, it seems, where politicking has replaced integrity. the affiliation, the cord between names is king.

silence quickly follows.

if artists don't risk being laughed at, shunned, who will? if artists don't speak frankly about injustices, large and small, who will? if artists don't stick to their guns, who will? who will inspire others to investigate this world, unearth the abandoned ethics, search for meaning, create meaning, give us all a reason to fight, and believe that life isn't pointless? if artists can't be brave, who can be?

since the time of the renaissance, it has ceased to be in the job description for an artist to do what they are told. we work for no king other than King Art itself.

i've said it once and i'll say it again because I need to hear it and maybe other artists do to:

integrity is NOT a rear-guard notion.

collection...

last night before bed, i spread out a small collection of drawings and paintings i've done over the passed few weeks and was really pleased with what i saw-
there is such a solid direction and cohesiveness to this work that i guess i was entirely unaware of until seeing a few grouped together.



protect
24" x 17 3/4"
oil on canvas
2008

my investigation of the need for protection and the pleasure of safety are leading me to see the new poetry that is born inside trauma and fragmentation... the loss we tolerate when we put up fences and wondering where i can find the space to build a site of hope within all this obsessive seperation and fear...




untitled haven
9 3/4" x 6 1/4"
mixed media collage
2008

of course, we need fences but when do we stop building them? where is the guideline that we can turn to and say, "oops! one too many, let's take that last one down. we've lost too much."




all my cages were empty
5" x 5"
ink on torn book page
2008

sometimes the desire for protection doesn't rise from a healthy place. in the case of the edited document, it's a need for protection from embarrassment and an unwanted, damaging exposure. it hides information angrily... maliciously... a sign of the corruption of the one who wields the big black marker.




Anonymous Girls study
7 1/2" x 5 1/2"
ink on paper
2008

but i'm trying to find beauty anyway... these delicate phrases that remain in spite of the obliteration i've done to them.




dust flower
8 1/4" x 5 1/4"
acrylic on book page
2008

how gorgeous is the fragmented phrase "a dust flower". stunning. poetic. destruction and loss turned against itself.




the penalty (detail)
13" x 10"
mixed media collage
2008

i feel like i'm on the right track.

Anonymous Landscape 1

10" x 10"
oil on canvas
2008

my fascination with the collective human urge to protect, stake claims, and establish ownership has led me to consider land and our feelings toward it. recently, my friend heather and i were discussing the native american outlook on land ownership: that it makes no sense. how does one come to own land? it's the same as stating one can own the air - something free and shared by all. how tragically opposite this outlook is to the american perception of ownership.

i've also been thinking about land as a classified document in and of itself - it hides its history. when we look out at a landscape, the events that have taken place within its boarders are not at all apparent. trees and tall grass can erase the signs of war, and leave us with no signal of its true past. bearing this in mind, putting a fence around that landscape seems redundant - we'll never know what secrets the land keeps.

it is our fear that drives the desire to stake claims and put up fences: stranger danger. we're afraid our neighbors will take what we've worked for... and why not? the history of the world is full of conquest, pillaging, taking. we've shown each other that none of us can be trusted. is that cynical? or is it true? finding answers to these questions is what my practice is trying to uncover. i'm trying to show that, just as easily as we put up fences around a house or farm, we put up frnces around ourselves. we lock each other out. we wait to hear unknowable passwords instead of extending trust or compassion.

i'm trying to see what we've lost in order to know where to go.

possession 1 and 2

both works
10" x 8"
ink on paper
2008

ostriches are the best models...

The ostrich is the perfect subject for a painting. They’re tall, somewhat mysterious creatures that are just ugly enough to be interesting… just like most models. Unlike most models, they’re misunderstood.

Common knowledge would have us believe that they’re stupid. And maybe they are. It is in fact true that they have painfully tiny brains. However, that’s not why they’re believed to be an idiot bird. Most people believe that when an ostrich is threatened by a predator it is so scared that it sticks its head in the sand in an attempt to hide.

When I was as a child, I’d close my eyes when I got scared. I believed that if I couldn’t see what I was afraid of, it couldn’t see me either. I became invisible… not even God could see me.

Well, that isn’t what the ostrich is doing. If it was, they’d all be dead. The father ostrich is digging a hole for the mother ostrich’s eggs. They’re protecting they’re young.

Misunderstood. Not stupid.

I’m almost 27 and i'm still closing my eyes, shutting them tight against all the scary things that I don’t want to see and all the things and people that I don’t want to see me…

36" x 48", oil on canvas 2007