March 31st, 2011

This makes me think of Helmut Newton.

Working at the Studio

I thought I would just include this shot from my phone of the wall opposite where I am painting at the studio, it is a bit of a wall of inspiration, its a bit of an 80s phenom true enough, but hey, Avedon's house was full of walls that had things pinned to it, and if its good enough for Richard Avedon...

So as you look across this mess, you will see your obligatory amount of postcards, there is a beautiful Elizabethan tunic/dress thingy from the V&A, its something to see in real life, really.

There are also a great deal of studies I have done over the years of GIJoe figures, and a C3P0 from a painting I destroyed a few years ago, I could not destroy this figure it looked pretty great. It was a very personal painting, and I was never too happy with it, done at my old shared studio on Niagara St, Jeez the utterly un-fond memories of that place, most of which are foul smell related, those who visited me there will remember my roommate...

Other highlights: a postcard of a Hans Belmer sculpture I saw in France in 2009, Koons' Michael and Bubbles, and a watercolour of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin from a photo by Helmut Newton. I started the painting and realised it was not watercolour paper but archival computer photo paper, interesting texture actually.

Oh, by the way, I found a link to Richard Avedon's house in NYC, take the tour, the place is amazing. Click here.

Social Media

So I have this show coming up, here are some really lo fi shots from my sketchbook.

These images are continuing on a theme of entering adulthood and fantasy.

Hey, I said Lo Fi.

Anyways, after much trouble, I was able to set up a facebook page so that I could invite people to this opening. I know, a monkey can do that, but for some reason it took me awhile and Scott's explanation to actually get it done.

I was reminded of a video that dear Jan had sent me, she worked in online advertising. This 3 minute video is the bomb, please have a look.

Upcoming Exhibition at Loop

So as the deadline to the new show approaches, there was a mention of it in Toronto Life this week. It has a grotesque photo of some sandwich meat...I eat beef and it looks gross to me.

Anyways, the pressure is mounting so I hope you can make it to the show, I think its going to be great, my exhibition partner Larry Eisenstein were talking about it, we are really excited to see how the work will play off each other, it is so much better if there is a type of inter play between the work rather than a room where two shows are happening at the same time.

If your eyes cannot read that or you do not want to click the picture, here is what it says:

Eric Farache
This photographer is best known for his take on the urgencies of city life, but his sketchbooks are testimony to febrile imagination. Life Lessons, a show of watercolour and ink paintings, approaches the torments and joys of boyhood with verve and nerve.

That is me, people, Verve.

Our show runs from April 30th to May 22, 2011. Please come, there will, as always, be cheese*. Our opening/vernissage is still being determined.




*this offer is only good for the opening, please do not show up on a Wednesday at 4pm and demand cheese, it is childish and demeans us both.

The artist as Monkey

I'll take a break from ranting about Gaddafi for a moment to look at some old drawings that I found in the back of my excessively heavy flat file, again, years later, I thank Mike Bell for helping me drag that f'n thing up the stairs to my studio.

As some of you know, I have referred to myself as the Art Monkey, I feel that the Artist is a monkey who must respond to the needs of his/her environment. It is a bit like being a private dancer, but hey, when you are a dancer for money, I do what you want me to do.

I was working this insane gig back in 1995, painting in a restaurant, I had painted a mural there, now they wanted me to paint canvases while the glitterati ate red meat.

It was heinous but it came with a free meal.

I felt like those little monkeys with the cymbals you wind up for amusement.



You get the idea, then a few years later, I was in India and my mind was blown by Hanuman, the monkey god who goes around performing tasks, he flies on a cloud when needed and does one's bidding. I'm not saying I have Rama's portrait emblazoned on my heart or anything but it spoke to me.

So I think somewhere around 2002-3 I did these series of drawings of Monkeys. Monkey as artist, monkey as guy looking at a laptop sippin' coffee, etc.

And some as a kind of Hanuman friend to the animals, the cow image is something that i remember from the beach, these cows that would just walk around so I wanted to put an element of that memory into these drawings.

Its always interesting to look at work of yours from another time period, sheds light on what you were doing, interests and concerns.

Gaddafi Wins, what next for the West?

Hey don't get me wrong, I want Charlie Sheen to win over Gaddafi, 100% of the time, you can take that to the bank.

But, we do not need Muammar to get a Twitter account to know what he has been up to or what he would do if he can maintain power.

So the question remains not what the crazed despot will do next, we know that already (torture, maim and kill- all with total disrespect for the fashion tzars- except for perhaps Mr. Galliano???) but what will the West do if Gaddafi secures control over Libya, we know the oil business would like to put its head in the sand and just collect money but can we just accept that by buying his oil, yet again, the West enriches its own enemies?

Personally, I would like to see a little Mano e Mano with someone like Charlie Sheen and Gaddafi to fight to the death in the Circus Maximus with nuclear powered dildos....

In all seriousness, I was looking up quotes of these two twerps, and I just had to laugh, what else can I do...?

Charlie

Gaddafi

But you know, why waste your time with these two intellectual lightweights?

All the important quotes are right here

Gaddafi plays with Libyans as if they are Toy Soldiers

Yes, Mr. Gaddafi, your people love you.

Yes, you are proving each day that they lay down their lives as you mow them down.

No matter how much of an insane megalomaniac Gaddafi seemed in the 1980s, he is outdoing himself in the present.

What really irks me with the SNL send up of Gaddafi recently is that they just straight mimicked his Africa pin rather than making that in the LIVEAID logo, as so much of that money was un-tracked and no one knows how much went to starving people and how much went to despots.

By the way, did you ever watch LIVEAID? That Saturday was really hot in Toronto and the last thing I wanted to be doing was staying at home watching a concert so I popped in a VHS tape ( my Dad always kept the Beta to himself)turned on the VCR and promptly forgot about it for about 10 years. SO, somewhere between 1995-2000 I watched the concert of the decade. It was, merdeloaf. Anyway you cut it, it was MERDE. For serious.



But I still have the tape and the commercials are the bomb, you cannot believe it was 1985, it looks like the 1980 or 1979. Commercials for Vodka Cooler and crap like that. Ok, ok, Queen was ok, Bono was already the Bono he is now, but we were 15 years away from realising that.

Anyways, back to tyrants....

But as Brutus was to have said and more recently John Wilkes Booth, who shouted Sic semper tyrannis, after shooting Lincoln and then jumping from the presidential box at the Ford theatre and onto the stage during the performance of My American Cousin (Sic semper tyrannis = thus always to tyrants {their brutal endings} is the translation ) but, in relation to Gaddafi, when I ask you, when???

Of course this is a mixed message as the senate behind the Julius Caesar assassination were a bunch of a holes and Booth was a racist narcissist.

Still, I hope you get the idea.

While we wait for some form of brutal ending for Gaddafi, I would prefer he played with toy soldiers instead of real people. He seems to be obsessed with toys, he has a cadre of expendable toy soldiers around him and his famous 40 female virgins that are his Amazon body guards.

Maybe what he needs is a few ACTUAL toy soldiers and less toying with real people.

Here are a couple of toys I painted a few months back. These 2 watercolour sketches show some GI Joes, both clothed and naked like Helmut Newton's photo of models from years gone by.