Flinders Bay, Augusta WA 6290, Australia 2007

There is always something sublime and soulful I feel about the summer break and at the same time it always surprises me when it finally arrives. The decline of tempo, activities and “things to do” is always so abrupt that it’s almost like stepping through a door into a different world. Suddenly you have time for … basically time! One day you are sitting with maddening and intangible amounts of work and everyday rigmarole and the next minute a void of time to fill. Fantastic! I will make sure I fill every moment with fun and wonderful memories from the summer of 2011 until I am back in the office on the flip-side!

Mandalay Beach, D’entrecasteaux National Park, Windy Harbour, WA 6262, Australia – 2007

To everyone, have a wonderful summer! Either with soulful days in July and August, the warm winds of remote beaches or the buzz, sights, sounds and smells of new cities with the people you love!

Breathe in and breathe out, wherever summer takes you!

I will leave you all with some incredible work from a friend of mine, who captures these images behind the lens of his camera, either under the water or over. Go and have a look at http://www.witberg.no/Lars.swf

I couldn’t stand poetry at school and never looked at it as an art form. We were inundated with Shakespeare, Byron, Donne, Wordsworth as candidates for impossible exam subjects in our GCSE’s at the age of 16. Some got it, most didn’t. I think it may be something that grows on you, like finally reading the lyrics of a song and actually “getting” it! It comes with age and an experience of life and what that throws at you. So here’s some real art for the weekend!

The Layers – Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.

When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.

In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Have a great weekend!

There is something strangely attractive with the erotic, absurd or morbid in art form. There are many artists that have provoked and shocked the art world through generations and eras. This can be interpreted by some, as pushing the ceiling, gaining attention or just absurd.

I personally do not think that is the case for many! I think pushing the boundaries is a necessity for any media form be it film, drama, literature or the painted form. It doesn’t have to make sense, appear logical or be socially acceptable. If it doesn’t provoke violence or do any real harm and is fascinating & beautiful then it gets my attention. Takato Yamamoto began by experimenting with Japanese Ukiyo-e Pop woodcut print style and then started his own creation called Heisei Esthiticism. By examining Takatos art it reveals a skill, finesse and imagination that lifts his work away from the porn squalor.

There is something wonderfully foreboding in his pictures, from the subtly sexual to the obscenely macabre. Images of severed heads, bound girls, streams of blood and vampirism seem to be a common theme. However, biblical theme’s are also present in Yamamoto’s work. Salome is described in the New Testament as the embodiment of female seductiveness and treachery, that lead to the death of the Baptist. Below we see her with the baptists head against a blood red moon.

Takato Yamamoto was born in Akita prefecture (Japan) in 1960. He graduated from the painting department of Tokyo Zokei University. His first exhibition was held in Tokyo, in 1998.

Here is a selection of Yamamoto’s work.. enjoy!

Show

[View with PicLens]

It isn’t always easy standing in front of a blank canvas and I often find I do it more often than not. Inspiration is always an undying source of creativity. Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. More often enough it comes like lightning from a clear blue sky. One of my favorite sources of inspiration is from a Latvian born, American painter known as Mark Rothko, Mark Rothkowitz (September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970). Labeled, by the art world, as an abstract expressionist, Rothko resisted the art world’s stormtroopers and called himself an abstract painter! Simple and to the point!

Rothko’s More

Ok, I grant you, at first glance, not the most awe-inspiring but then again look again and think. It is the images and style that captures my imagination and their associations. Look again and then picture the following….

By all means, you be the judge, but Rothko inspires me. Rothko’s inspiration of Mythology, Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Mythomorphic Abstractionism (Miro & Dali)  is also food for thought and gives countless forms of aspiration.

Brett Whiteley – Portrait of Wendy (Brett’s wife) – 1984

(Oil, Material, pencil, charcoal, pen and ink on paper, on Canvas, 150cm x 212cm)

Brett Whiteley – an Australian Legend

Brett Whiteley, a legendary Australian artist, died of an overdose, just over 18 months after I left Australia for the first time in 1990. I never saw his work until I saw it on the Australian Tour for Billy Connolly, who was a personal friend of Brett Whiteley. Whiteley’s work, style and larger than life personality blew me away. Both as an artist and as a person.

Brett Whiteley (1939-1992)

He was a passionate man who had a view on life, which was unique and in some ways tragic. All the good artists die young as they say.

A man who dared and irritated art critics by adding his own hair too his art and who had a signature of adding small birds to his work, which Billy Connolly himself, said reminded him personally of Brett in each painting.

Brett Whiteley’s Studio

He had some endearing quotes about life and art, which I love;

“Never trust an art dealer who’ll sit in a room for more than ten minutes with a crooked picture.“

“The most fundamental reason one paints is in order to see.”

“Everything is such a sort of stoned state… I walk around with a bunch of violets in my hand and a sledgehammer and a grain of sand in my head. I am happy.”

“The fine art of painting, which is the bastard of alchemy, always has been always will be, a game. The rules of the game are quite simple: in a given arena, on as many psychic fronts as the talent allows, one must visually describe, the centre of the meaning of existence.

Brett Whiteley sort of sums up my experience of the life in Australia and the freewill and beauty of that amazing country. You can do anything you want as long as it’s done with passion and with life!

“Waltzing Mathilda” say I !

“People ask me ‘why paint birds?’ and I look at them dumbfounded! I’ve got no answer, except that they are the most beautiful creatures” – Brett Whiteley

I returned to Australia in 2007 but was unable to visit his gallery due to being on the west coast, in Fremantle, but if you are DownUnder and in the Sydney area, you can find it at:

2 Raper Street Surry Hills 2010, NSW Australia.

The Brett Whiteley Studio – http://www.brettwhiteley.org

Lived
1939 – 1992 Australia

Famous Works
The Soup Kitchen 1958
Untitled Red Painting 1960
Alchemy 1972-73
Self Portrait in the Studio 1976
The Jacaranda Tree (on Sydney Harbour) 1977

Visible Influences
Francis Bacon, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Chinese Calligraphy.

Movements & Styles
Abstraction (early in his career)
Surrealism (majority of his work)
Known for his skill as a great draughtsman.
Produced mostly nudes, landscapes, and abstract works (early in his career).
Also produced still lives, portraits, cityscapes, and erotic works.

I would just like to wish all my customers, friends, family and to those that are just special to me, a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2010! 2009 has been an eventful year which has given me the strength and foresight to know what’s right and where I need to be. Sometimes life gives you a kick where you need it and as I always say “There is a solution to everything, it just depends on how much time you have”.


So I leave you in 2009 with the words from a great song “Awake”. Seems fetching for a New Year!

Like a dream I know it’s real
I pretendLife is just a game
It’s a lie
It’s a lie to me
In my mind
I pretend that I can’t feel anymore
I see the storm is coming down
It’s coming down from the stormy clouds
Wishing all my dreams come true
But wait, what I need Is something else
And I know that it takes some time
Making all my dreams come true
Well at first, we were all the same
Can we stay
Can I play this life again, anymore
I see the storm is coming down
It’s coming down from the stormy cloud
Wishing all my dreams come true<
But wait, what I need Is something else
And I know that it takes some time
Making all my dreams come true
Awake – Donkeyboy 2009

Like I always say, art can be found in many forms, shapes, genres and articulations, of which move us in some way with its flair, imagination, beauty, aptitude and dexterity. But some of the most simplest forms of art can move us to our very core.



Last Friday on the 16th October 2009, I saw something that moved me to my core and something that touched my heart in a way I have never felt before. The art I am talking about is music, but it wasn’t in the form of some complex Opera or an Oscar winning Stage Play or an astounding Rock band. The music was actually a cover of AC/DC’s Back in Black, and the form in which, and the way it was played, and whom it was played by, was the exceptional part.



Robothead is a new band here in Kolbotn, Norway which is fronted by my son and his best mates. All of them are only 11 yrs old and have only been playing for 6 weeks together.

Concert Ready: Front from left: Marius Wingquist, Sara Siblini, Sebastian Vobes and Tobias Øzeke. Back from left: Mathias Flaate, Jonas V. Grini, Emil Kvansdahl, Oscar M. Østgaard, Harald Kruhaug og Erlend Tyttingvåg.

Other bands playing on the same night Mørkeredd, and Zero Hero


I was blown away and amazed by the way that they could just get up on stage after 6 weeks practice, and sing and play their hearts out! Pride is an understatement and my feelings are obviously very much subjective…. but you be the judge. It moved me anyway, in my own personal way, and that’s what counts, within all art forms….. especially when its performed and produced by your own child!
Enjoy!

Robothead