In this part of the website, I will attempt to explain how I approach the first part of the artistic process, namely, the construction of the subject. I do not intend it to be a session in self-indulgent theorising, but simply a space where I can explain how my mind works in a more thoughtful and hopefully lucid fashion than that which the verbal permits.

As a great deal of art production is intuitive and therefore not readily explainable, I shall concentrate only on the major decisions I encounter throughout the process, decisions which can be confidently and satisfactorily articulated through the collaboration of word and visual.  

Some of my works are themed, or have personal meaning. However, to demonstrate my style’s largely unfettered nature, I wish here to discard a thematic framework and instead work from three unrelated images that I arbitrarily selected from the dictionary. Because of their creative outlet potential (discussed later), the images needed to be concrete nouns. If I placed my finger on a verb, adjective, abstract noun, or any other word that is difficult to express visually, then I simply retried until I finally selected a concrete noun. The three words chosen were cement, elm and rod.

Before we start working with these images, however, I feel it is important that I briefly establish my own personal beliefs on art, and my approach to the drawing procedure.

Basic Philosophy

Despite almost universal beliefs of the contrary, dictionaries do not define words – such a feat would only be possible if word meanings were stagnant – but they do offer examples of contemporary usages that are likely to remain relevant and established for an indefinite period. Unsurprisingly, the denotation of ‘art’, like those of most vague concepts, remains undecided and inconsistent.  

If I were to summarise my own personal philosophy of art in a single clause, it would be this: working from life is plagiarism, whether it be plagiarism of Creation (of one believes in a transcendent designer) or plagiarism of the world (if one believes in materialism). I personally cannot consider copying from life – whether it is a still life, a portrait, a landscape, etc. – creative.

Of course, it is impossible to create a completely original piece of work, insofar as even the most startlingly original of designs must borrow the same contours, colours and connotations from the physical world. However, it is possible to offer people an alternative way of viewing consensual reality. In my opinion, the purpose of the artist is to offer his audience a fresh, individualised perception of the world constructed from his own intuition, imagination, disposition, palette preferences, and memory-based perceptions. The next section is concerned with the latter aspect, and describes a method of working I call ‘retentive filtration’. 

Retentive Filtration

Unless one has a photographic memory, it is inevitable that we omit many details, both minor and major, when attempting to remember an event, conversation, image, etc. The human brain even has a tendency to filter out the unpleasant or stressful moments of past events, unless they have been consciously committed to the long-term memory through repeated contemplation. Although in an everyday context a poor or average memory is obviously unenviable, I believe it can be advantageous when creating artwork.

As an example, find a piece of paper and a pencil and draw from memory the face of a person you know well. Try to include as many characteristics as possible.

More than likely, the picture looks nothing like the real person; perhaps there are embarrassingly few similarities between the two. In the majority of cases, either your memory or your artistic ability failed you. Nevertheless, what you have in front of you is actually unique; your drawing is a completely individual interpretation of a person. If a professional realist drew that person from life it would, or at the very least should, bear the same characteristics as that which everybody else perceives. His is a recycled image, an external, impersonal projection that serves as a diluted copy of the real, but yours is the opposite. A million skilled realists could duplicate his work without needing to see his drawing first, but no one could duplicate yours without seeing the original.   

You may contend that your drawing is nothing but a cartoon, or a product of intuition and rapidity. However, think about the many conscious and subconscious decisions you made while drawing the picture. What exactly led you to make the choices you made? For instance, you may have given the subject a hyperbolically large nose. Perhaps your decision to do so stemmed from the belief that he did have a large nose, which turns out to be untrue. Perhaps an unrelated past memory – for instance, a large-nosed man, a protruding rock, or a bulbous cloud – intercepted your mental image of him, which, even after it had long vanished from your train of thought, had left a mentally imperceptible stain on your present focus. Perhaps you were channelling into the picture your own insecurities about your physical appearance. Perhaps someone recently described you as nosy. Perhaps you were encapsulating an entire characteristic of the person (for instance, his ‘robust’ personality, weight problem, rounded disposition) into that one facial feature. Perhaps ethnic stereotypes tainted your perception of the person. Perhaps you just wanted to give the subject a large nose because by drawing this exaggerated shape you were expressing or exorcising a lingering or surfacing emotion.

Such factors are not, or should not be, at work in relation to the realist’s method because by default he is trying to copy. He must sever all ties with subjectivity. If he bestows his subject with an oversized nose then, in the context of intention, he is not an innovator or a renegade, but an amateur. The field of plagiaristic art encourages such a limited definition of skill that its artists’ integrities are unpleasantly easy to judge; it is too easy to regard them as ‘inferior’ or ‘superior’ to their contemporaries, or denounce them as shadows of past masters.

Thus, my first aim when drawing an image is to make sure that my own mind produced it. A bicycle is notoriously difficult to draw from life, and is doubly so from memory. However, even if my memory-drawn bicycle is so distorted that it borders on abstraction, it is unlikely to go unrecognised so long as I preserve its eminent and distinguishable features (in this case, spoked wheels, handles, maybe a shopping basket). And if after including these features the bicycle is still abstract to the point that it defies recognition, so what? That is the bicycle of my world, and I have guaranteed its uniqueness!

Now that I have explained this basic principal, I can establish how I relate one image to another. I do this by estimating the image’s potential creative outlets. 

Creative Outlets

 ‘Creative outlet’ is my coined term for a unit for measuring how much creative potential a particular image contains. There are four main types of outlet:

1.) Gross outlets: the basic components that constitute the image (for instance, a door’s handle, window, hinges and design), which can be manipulated, replaced, transformed, deleted, or left unchanged by itself and/or its neighbouring images.

 2.) Subtle outlets: the image’s transcendent properties (for instance, where the door leads, who or what interacts with it, its outline and placement within the composition). Necessary to employ a subtle outlet is knowledge or precognition of neighbouring images, themes, shapes, sizes, and colours. Essentially, an outlet that requires me to think beyond the image’s immediate demands.

3.) Extension outlets: the components of the image that are eminently accessible and available specifically for standard or exuberant elongation, and which often connect to another image elsewhere in the painting (for instance, the door’s handle extending outwards and transforming into a serpent, which opens the door from the other side). Extension outlets are extremely gross, and often result in the most arresting of designs; a substantive terminus a quo when discriminating between images of equal attraction.

4.) Self-formation outlets: in its loosest denotative sense, a self-formation outlet is a particularly extroverted outlet that lends the image it is a part of the opportunity for spontaneous generation. Because a self-formation outlet effectively self-contains the image without the possibility of interception (thus producing a self-formation image), its seemingly transcendent properties are not enough for it to be considered a subtle outlet, which largely revolves around external stimulation.

For example:

[1.0]

Image 1.0 depicts two people; the first person is vomiting (his mouth is the first self-formation outlet), and his vomit is transforming into his torso. The second person, somewhat connected to, and licking the vomit of, the first, is spawned from a liquid pouring from the first person’s severed hands (the second and third self-formation outlets).

The image is self-formative because it is entirely self-contained; hovering in limbo and lacking any notable outlets (for instance, ears), it is very difficult for a neighbouring image to satisfactorily penetrate and modify, or connect to, the image without disrupting its circular flow.

Image 1.0 is an example of a ‘pure’ self-formation image, insofar as the subjects within it were spawned from their own produce. However, as image 1.1 demonstrates, a self-formation outlet does not have to be part of, or even related to, the image(s) that it produces:

[1.1]

The image shows some runners sprinting along a track. The winning runner, who has broken the finishing tape, is somewhat less human than the others are, and, with an oversized trunk (the self-formation outlet), gradually sucks in the track – and the losing runners – from the other side. Again, the image is completely circular and self-contained. Even if I decided to include a sky for the event, the trunk/swirling track combo above could contain it, as image 1.2 shows:

[1.2]

Self-formation images are rare in my paintings because their isolated nature can result in compositional fragmentation. However, they do exist. A self-formation image I am especially fond of is present in Idiosyncratica (2007). Located in the upper middle-left of the painting, it shows a green creature whose hands are computer game controllers, and whose feet are the hands operating the controllers. On the television screen, which is located in the creature’s chest, we see that the creature is controlling a computerised military man who, with a large gun, is shooting at its own heart, causing the creature to bleed from the mouth. Although the image is not entirely self-formative, as the creature links with two neighbouring images (a twine ball with eyes, and a cloud), the theme of self-infliction, and the major images depicting it, are self-contained. With no notable exterior outlets either, the image could function well as a singular entity.    

I often include in a painting an image that I originally intended to be a self-formative, but which was eventually joined to the larger body due to the painting’s stylistic demands.

Image 1.3 below shows an elephant trunk entering an elongated pencil sharper, and its sharpenings gradually forming the elephant’s ears:

[1.3]

Despite its initially circular design, the image in its completed state – which can be found at the bottom left of The Child Snatchers (2006) – is interrupted; the trunk enters the first, and exits through the second, eye of one of the painting’s many ‘child snatchers’ (malevolent beings whose eyes are normally portrayed as defecating sphincters).     

The Construction of a Main Image

With the principal of creative outlets now explained, I can seek to determine how I can apply it to the three images chance selected me.

1.) Cement

Cement in itself is practically a non-image without there being another image to give it outline and definable characteristics. Therefore, we will use cement truck instead.

Image 2.0 depicts a cement mixer that I drew from memory. I kept detail to a minimum so that I can work with the structure it in its purest, most malleable form:

[2.0]

The arrows indicate the three types of outlet readily perceptible from brief observation (dark green for gross outlets, light green for subtle outlets, blue for extension outlets and red for self-formation outlets). Due to their respective outlet’s polydimensionality, the arrows that signify gross, subtle and self-formation outlets are double-ended, while the arrows that signify extension outlets are one-ended to emphasise the outlet’s inherent inclination towards forwardness. As is shown, we can regard many sections of the image as possessing the potential for two or more different outlet types. The cement drum’s end (number 1), for instance, has the potential for all four. It is easy to imagine it as an extension or gross outlet, but the other two require more imagination and would likely require me to break the ‘three images’ limit. A simple subtle outlet for the component could involve an elm tree with clouds for foliage emerging from the drum, extending high above the truck, and with rain from the clouds hammering against the truck. A simple self-formation outlet for the component could involve two phones emerging from the drum, with the truck’s driver answering both. Number two shows that even seemingly barren components can function as subtle outlets (in this case, the drum’s midsection. I can easily turn this into a stomach from which, for example, a hatchling could burst out and latch onto, or merge with, another section of the image). Similarly, number three shows that even seemingly ‘flat’, unobtrusive parts of the image can become extension outlets; I could, for instance, extend the horizontal base of the truck vertically, and merge it with the ground.

In this example we will work from a selection of these eminent outlets.

Personifying an image is the easiest and most rewarding way of transforming it into something striking and unique. As a singular entity, the human body is a compact engine of workable outlets that is a veritable playground for anyone who intends to alter reality. Most appealing about the human body to me is its triumvirate of subtle (and, depending on the image’s demands, self-formation) outlets that have the ability to both expel and accept matter, namely the anus, the genitals and the mouth.

So, let us begin by personifying the cement truck:

[2.1]

The truck retains its chassis, but also has a number of new features. Its front is now a male head (with window and driver’s silhouette in its midsection signify the eye and pupil respectively), and its cement container now faces downwards to indicate an anus. The wheels remain wheels for the important purpose of reminding the viewer that he is looking at a cement truck; too great a departure from the initial image might lead viewers to believe that they are viewing an abstract invention, which is fine under normal circumstances, but which would counterpoint this example’s image-specific agendum. 

2.) Elm

The next image the dictionary selected me was elm, which is quite fortunate because the tree, like the human body, is an outstanding agent for numerous, indeed infinite, creative outlets. However, unlike the multi-layered human body, the tree will cease to be a tree if I heavily manipulate its limited attributes, so I must exercise restraint here if I intend to preserve recognition.  

[2.2]

This is a basic template of a tree (I only attend to a tree’s type if its physical properties are noticeably different from the standard [for instance, the shade-giving willow], which lead to irregular outlets). Its creative outlets lay predominantly in its branches and roots, though I can use the trunk as an effective outlet if the tree lacks grounding (no roots), or is a stump (no branches). I find that foliage is best used to decorate the images sourced by the branches, source the images decorating the branches, or for colour balance.

[2.3]

A tree now adorns the image. Normally it is best not to burden the truck with a platform, but the idea I have for the image requires one, so I provided a road for his wheels to rest on. A shallow dip in the road underneath the cement truck’s anus provides a suitable container for his fluids, and, in consequence, an overabundance of nourishment for the tree to grow. (I normally eschew adherence to logic and natural laws, but as we are working with a limited number and type of images, a failure to seize these moments of rational clarity might prove disadvantageous when intending to preserve subject familiarity).

Next, I make the currently passionless truck-tree relationship more intimate by having the truck’s upper outlet lay eggs into a nest provided by the tree:

[2.4]

3.) Rod

The final image the dictionary selected me was rod, which, like cement, is undefined and meaningless in itself, so I opted for a contemporaneous interpretation of the word, namely phallus. I could incorporate this powerful image, which abounds with hundreds of potentially transcendent outlets, into the design through a variety of pleasing ways. However, I opted for an uncomplicated alternative:

[2.5]

The phallus simply functions as the truck’s platform. Note that its upper end, on the right side, gradually becomes the truck’s tongue.

However, the phallus lacks testicles! Although I could incorporate testicles into the present design, the results are unsatisfying:

[2.6]

Unless I added another image (which would break my self-imposed limit of three), the lower testicle’s outline has nowhere to connect, unless it were to return to the phallus, which would leave a dissonant sloping line that would contrast with, or even nullify, the quasi-rotary harmony of its brother’s. Given the natural symmetry of the penis, however, I can afford to parallel that which I have already created:

Here is the completed outline. The penis functions as the road for a male egg-laying cement truck, as well as a female egg-laying cement truck below. Notice that the female truck’s features are different from those of the male; her features, particularly those around the wheel area, are softer to give a more distinctly feminine feel, while the head is also more rounded. Her eye is a standard wheel whose middle contains the actual ball, retina, etc.

I decided against including another liquid-containing dip, firstly because simply replicating a design is innately uncreative, even when an agenda demands it, and secondly because I wanted at least one part of the upper image to connect to the lower: there is only one tree in this drawing. Its branches merge into a nest, its trunk passes through the penis body (the ‘ground’) and it emerges on the other side, with roots merging into a duplicate nest. Unless one desires ambiguity or double imagery, one can apply colour to discourage misinterpretations of such designs.

The testicles are currently blank circles. In my large-scale painting Variations on a Fairground (2008), in which this image is featured, I filled the circles with an orange sky (a complementing dimension to the road-bound truck image). The sunset’s reddish clouds swirl around like sperm, and indeed many of them transform into sperm to emphasise the sky-testicles dichotomy. 

In portrait format we can view the entire image simply as a penis. The trucks’ egg-producing outlets are sperm ducts and their tongues are foreskin substitutes, while we might view the cement trucks as representations of the organ’s inner machinations.