Originally uploaded by rsconnett
Memento Mori, (Remember you will die)
18" x 24" Acrylic on panel ~ October 2009One of the "UNDERWORLD" paintings I've been creating in the past few months. This one is changing however. As you can see, human faces are beginning to show up. In this case, they are the dead floating in the still waters before the symbol of death, the skull. The skull is being overgrown with reeds showing the passing of time.
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
MANTIS POND - 12" X 24" Acrylic on canvas 9/2009
This is another 'interim' painting, (I will not call it a study) moving towards a larger piece 'UNDERWORLD IV'. This is character development. The cobra lilies are becoming more cobra-like. The caterpillars are evolving. The mantis is a new character, as is the black widow spider. There are many black widows were I live. They amaze me.
I'll probably move into the larger piece now. I've used this same palette and same basic theme in my last 3 or 4 paintings. I plan to continue specializing like this, continue to explore where this world will take me, until I have exhausted the potential of this world. That might very well be never.
If only I could live forever.
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
COBRA LILIES ~ 10" X 20" ~ Acrylic on canvas ~ 2009
Study #2 for the painting, 'UNDERWORLD 5'
This is (what I call) a study for the larger painting I'm planning. Before I begin painting the larger piece, I want to make sure I'm happy with the characters and other aspects of the painting, water, sky, plant colors, etc ... I think this one holds it's own. I dig the cobras and the guy walking through the swamp. He was an unexpected visitor into my world. I'm not sure if he will be in the big painting or not.
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
"JESUS CHRIST PORTRAIT #7"
An Acrylic Painting on wood panelIMAGE SIZE: 11" x 14"
This is the 7th Christ portrait I've done in 24 months. I'm an 'Animist' myself, which is one step up, (or is it down?) from an atheist. I believe in everything and nothing simultaneously. Seems conflicted, yet somehow it works for me. In spite of this, I've always been interested in the image of Christ.
As a child brought up in a neighborhood of Irish Catholics, I was the only mutt from a family of unknown origin, and atheistic leanings. The icons at the neighborhood church, only a few doors away, of the bloody Christ figure in anguish, was one of the earliest images burned into my childhood memory. Of course, I was constantly told by my young peers that I was destined for hell, having no baptism.
Keep the faith baby!
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
"UNDERWORLD V" (Curiosity) Paint study 12" x 12" Acrylic on paper
This is a painted study for the fifth in my series I call "UNDERWORLD"
I plan to re-paint this in a larger, more polished and evolved version.
I am calling this "CURIOSITY" because the living things in the picture seem curious about the inanimate objects; The skull, the crack pipe, and the tablet.
Flora vs. Fauna, UNDERWORLD IV
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
FLORA vs FAUNA, (UNDERWORLD IV)
18" X 18" Acrylic on wood panel
This is number 4 in my series I call "UNDERWORLD(s)" My vision of the life that thrives in gigantic, yet tiny worlds which surround us, but is also hidden from us.
This one illustrates the occasional dominion of plants over animals, hence the title; "FLORA vs FAUNA"
The scrotal looking plants in the painting are California Pitcher plants, also known as "COBRA LILIES". These clever plant adaptations entice their insect pray into a narrow mouth, heading toward a digestive "pot" with inward pointing hairs, preventing the insect from reversing out, sort of like a lobster trap.
The big red "flower" is modeled after an Anthurium. However the stamen of this particular Anthurium is patterned after a "Sticky Trap" carnivorous plant, (the Drosera Capensis). But of course, Anthuriums don't have tendrillic appendages which capture hornets either. (But wouldn't it be wonderful if they did!)
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
Red Garden (aka; "The things in my red garden)
8" x 10" Acrylic on masonite
This is #3 in my "UNDERWORLDS" series of paintings
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
(UNDERWORLD II) ~ ZOOOIDS (ZOO-OYDS)
12" x 12" Acrylic on canvas ~ 6/15/2009My second painting in the series "UNDERWORLD" , these are the 'ZOOOIDS' or 'ZOOIDS', (** see definitions below) Self-replicating organisms through means other than sex.
My creatures are based on living things called "Siphonophora". The illustrations I discovered are from the bio-drawings of Ernst Haeckel, (from the book; "ART FORMS IN NATURE") (Ernst Haeckel: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel) Sometimes I meander through this lovely book to get jolts of inspiration. (and also to enjoy, always that!)
I'm also currently working on #3 in the 'Underworld' series which I plan to title "FAUNA vs FLORA", or vise-versa.
Definitions of "ZOOIDS"
1. any organic body or cell capable of spontaneous movement and of an existence more or less apart from or independent of the parent organism.
2. any animal organism or individual capable of separate existence, and produced by fission, gemmation, or some method other than direct sexual reproduction.
3. any one of the recognizably distinct individuals or elements of a compound or colonial animallike organism, whether or not detached or detachable.
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
Acrylic on canvas - 24" x 24"
UNDERWORLD I is my first in a series of "UNDERWORLD" paintings. This is an evolution of my "CRUSTACEAPODS" and my "MICROBIA" paintings. This one is about 'insects', in case you did not notice that ;)
Originally uploaded by rsconnett
ACRYLIC ON WOOD COMPOSITE PANEL 16" X 20" (40.6 cm x 50.8 cm)
Completion date 3/25/2009A bone-yard is a graveyard, and represents death. We walk a path from birth to death starting the day we're born. Some walks are further than others. Some hardly get a few steps. None of our roads seem very long. Hardly long enough to understand the point of the walk.
This painting is self-allegory. Personal feelings at the time of painting it. It's depressing. It's a little scary. My life is full of death and dieing these past several years. Dieing people are all around me. In the past 33 months there have been three deaths of people close to me. Not good deaths. Horrible deaths.
Most deaths are horrible. Often, people don't know that. Especially when you are young, and not exposed to very much dieing, (if you are lucky) you think of death as happening in a nicer way than it usually happens. Either "crash and burn heroic death", or "die in your sleep with your loving family" death. Unfortunately, the reality as I've seen it is that death is appalling. The best death is a quick and unforeseen death. This sort of dieing is the rarest of the rare. Quick and unforeseen death hardly ever happens.
Cancer took two of these people who died in my sphere. This walker in my painting is pregnant with cancer. Cancer gets it's hooks into you and weaves itself inside you so densely that there's no way to cut it out without killing you. What could be more frightening than to realize you have cancer growing inside you? That thing on/in, and which is her belly is my metaphoric cancer creature.
The bones strewn upon the road are a metaphor for the dead hopes and dreams we leave behind us on our walk.
I have sacrificed many things I hold dear as I have ventured on my walk. The severed limbs also represent this for me. I have sacrificed and compromised on my walk many more times than I ever thought I would. Allegorically speaking, I'm headed to becoming a torso with four stumps. (ha! ha!)
The self immolation of the hand is also an analogy for the conscience decision to part with important ideals for the sake of "survival". It seems at odds to say one must sacrifice the things important in life to keep living it, yet this seems to be the norm. I can speak only for myself of course.
I feel myself becoming crippled. I'm deteriorating myself as I walk down this road. Death can be a slow process. A piece here, and a piece there, and some day there's nothing left. All these pieces are left on the road. The bone-yard road is strewn with the detritus of life's cast off ambitions.
Who are the fat cretins on the road,? They are me, of course. They are me as I see myself in a mirror; flaccid, enervated and unfit. Grotesque and ridiculous. Blemished hairy and stinking. A gross flesh-bag of putrified sludge. Ugly beyond redemption. I've got a fishbowl on my head because I am an alien.
Why is the city burning? The city of Los Angeles is always on fire. It is always hot and dry and smoking. The city terrorizes me. The people chill and disgust me. Los Angeles is a smoking poisonous horror. A monstrosity behind a mask. Dangerous, the hearts of it's citizens are filled with ignorance and malice. Fleeting superficial beauty under a poison cloud. LA is a mutant machine that runs on the blood and souls of men and women.
I live in a hideout in the hills, off a dirt road. I have posted hand painted signs of danger to drivers who mistakenly approach my dead end road; "DO NOT ENTER, YOU WILL GET STUCK! LOOSE GRAVEL! TURN BACK!" That keeps most people away. I am reluctant to leave my hideaway.
As long as that candle in the walkers head is alight, I am still me. I will keep walking.
NOTE: this painting will be shown at the upcoming group art exhibition; "SAY WHEN" at the "BOLD HYPE GALLERY" , April 4th Through May 10th, 2009 in Orlando Florida. For more info check out the website; www.boldhype.com
