Escape

 Escape (2021)

A photographic series of works around the theme of escaping reality, through self destructive  hedonistic, ways.

Pills, drugs, sex, music, alcohol, death?

Mostly monochrome, Instagram formatted and filtered.  Pushing the boundaries of what will and will not be censored.  This series is taking me to a darker place than before, and Instagram’s censorship is a source of concern.  Means I need to get my own webspace up to spec again. 

The work has given me a very visceral reaction to it, moreso than most other works I have created recently.  Tapped into something inside myself that yearns to break free?  I don’t know, I don’t fully understand it yet. The need to draw closer to death by blanking out the day to day existence.  Skirting close to edge of life.  A thrill seeker or just trying to take the edge off the days?

There is loss here too, the loss of previous partners in the crime, lovers of the edge. Memories and depression, highs and lows.

The first image of pills carries a sexual undercurrent to it, something I have tried to enhance with a warmer tone to it.  The second a brutal realism, as I have no wish to romanticize anymore than necessary the realities of drug use. Where the series goes from here, the shape the next images will take I am not clear on yet.  They exist, half formed ghosts. And while it is tempting to leave them there, memories of events that have not happened, the series should be bought to its conclusion.

Is there an irony in knowing about how destructive this all is, yet yearning for it anyway?  An addiction, my obsession, my mulatto, an albino…

Still Alive

 I see the Tate is celebrating a queer art month.  I'm not sure how I'd feel about my work being pushed or celebrated purely because of the orientation of my sexuality.  If it forms a basis underpinning all the work an artist creates, sure but...  
I mean, if all I painted were waterlillies, would I still be included? Where's the relevance?

It makes me doubt my always shaky claim to queerness.  As a few things have this past days. Not ready to detail yet, but as far as myself outside of art is concerned there is a lot to think upon. Whereupon these spectrums do I lie?

Anyway, I'm sorry it's been a while since I posted.  The Lockdown gives me nothing but time to think, and yet I am ever reluctant to put anything down for posterity.  Commitment is my enemy, even to holding thoughts accountable. I draw, I paint, I submit. I wait.

Art is diminished.  The things I want to do I cannot.  I have neither the space nor the resources. I am reduced to creating only that which I have always created, except I am cut off from the fanart side of things.  I hold myself lacking in comparison to my peers, and they are so far above me...  so, mentally, I have given up.  Especially harder when the one guy that everyone fawns over is my brother.  I exist in his shadow, and I cannot compete. Deservedly so, as he has been more committed than I, but it still makes me all the more aware that I am Not Good Enough, and so I cease, and so I am diminished further.  

 University continues to be a bitter waste of my time.  But I have wasted more time these last twenty years, so I shall keep my head down. If I am to fail, it will not be because I have not tried, moan though I may.

That'll do. Thanks to the Tate for sparking this post, I guess.

Peace.