Thursday 22 September 2011

I Can Feel It In My Bones...

So, It's a new look for juliemiaowl.
I've been meaning to customise the settings for ages.

What does everyone think?

The header photo is from a series of work I made a year ago titled "He Folded His Fear Into a Perfect Rose". It was taken from a line in Arundhati Roy's novel "The God Of Small Things", a brutal but beautiful story.
The skull is a flying fox, the petals from a rose.

Like a lot of my work, this series is yet to be printed! Still digital files floating around in cyberspace.....
Soon my pretties, soon.....

I think it's pretty clear I like collecting bones.......I'm not morbid or obsessed with death, I just think they're fascinating...... A window into the nature of our existence, a way to understand life and death. Sorry, getting a bit too profound.........apart from that, they're just beautiful objects. I always find them on the beach weathered by the sand and sun, pearly white and smooth, clear of any gross reminder of flesh once attached. Every time I pick them up I think of witches and old crones in movies like Robin Hood croaking out "Let's Consult the Bones..."

And because I've got such a great collection at the moment i thought I'd draw them.
This is a follow on from the drawing I did earlier this year.
It's not finished yet and I'm terrible at deciding when something is finished. You can work on a drawing forever and ever and ever and ever...........anyway, because i'm so bad at stopping I thought I'd document every state.

Consult the Bones (State 1), charcoal, and oil stick on canvas, 90x120cm

Consult the Bones (State 2), charcoal and oil stick on canvas, 90x120cm

Consult the Bones (State 3), charcoal and oil stick on canvas, 90x120 cm

It's a little too red at the moment, I think I got a bit carried away....so tomorrow I'm going to cover it in some more dirty white and scratch back into it. 
I keep looking at Aida Tomescu and Susan Rothenberg's work when I get stuck. They are my heroes. :) It's a good way to look at the surface and colours and decide what to do next.

Here are a couple of my favourites.....

Aida Tomescu, Aida's studio, I couldn't choose just one....

Susan Rothenberg, this is a painting I got to see at the 2007 Venice Biennale.
I nearly wet my pants with excitement!


In other news, we went to the local Botanic Gardens for a lovely Spring walk this week. 
Here's some proof that I'm a tree hugging hippy.








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