#175: Connect us to love

Oil on canvas painting of someone sat at a desktop computer.

#174: After a visit to an art gallery (and a throwback to the beginnings)

Work of art whose meaning remains hidden from the viewer, such as B. a painting facing the wall or a statue covered with a cloth.

(Is something in a work of art lost over time or each time it is placed in a new place or context? Is there something to be gained? Do some works of art lose their meanings after their first exposure, and if so, will they ever be?  Are some just memories of an event, and so they ultimately lose their meaning and value when they leave that event, a provocation flattened and agitated by time, a moment gone?

And what happens when a work of art is seen but is invisible when not busy? What happens when visitors don't overlook it and have a bad idea? Does it matter? When someone looks and decides, when they walk by, sees it, decides, but doesn't really stop or doesn't read the label? Or if so much is not there? When it is difficult for the viewer, when the art is like a finger removed from the body, when far from its original context it is difficult to see what it means?)

I think.

#173: Choose your title: Peace and Quiet Diptych / Underwater Silence Diptych / Swimming Pool, or Bathtime, Silence / Escape /

Two paintings, oil on canvas.

1: Bird’s eye view of someone floating in an outside swimming pool, the water just up above their ears, staring up into the sky, miles away.

2: View from above of someone lying in the bath, the water just up above their ears, staring up at the ceiling, somewhere else.

#172: I just get in the sea

Oil on canvas.  A woman swimming in the sea as seen from the pebbly beach.

Underneath is the following text: 

“What I’ve learned, when my mental health is bad, I just get in the sea and I feel better.” - Angela Barnes.

#171: Losing It and Loving It (Self-portrait XVI)

You: 

lost in something you enjoy: 

in the state where you are losing your shit and loving it: 

where you just don’t care how you look: 

you are not even thinking about it: 

(zero fucks):

you are just in that moment: 

doing whatever in wherever.

(For example, while singing it loud at the indie disco).

#170: Divine Youth? (Self-portrait XV)

The self-portrait in your own mind of how you imagine yourself to be.  That is, the version that lives inside your current self and that is the image you see in your mind’s eye before looking in the mirror - possibly causing you to get a bit of a surprise when you see the real you - especially if, like Nicky Wire, you are seeing a sort-of idealised younger version of yourself and your inner self does not match-up with your outer self: 

“Divine youth is lying in

A battered and a bruised skin

I wear but don't recognise.”

#169: Put yourself in Munch's place (Self-portrait XIV)

Take a look at Edvard Munch’s Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed.  

Behind him is a room full of light, showing his life and work.  Beside him stands a reminder of passing, counting down his time left on earth, to one side, and, to the other, his deathbed.  Each waiting to take him away.  

Put yourself in Munch’s place. 

What would you be leaving behind at The End?  

What would be in the room behind to represent your life?

And how would you look when facing the inevitable? 

What would be going through your head?

:

What would your Self-Portrait look like?