A Haiku Moment?

For all the good it might or might not do, I happen to have an insatiably inquisitive mind, which means nothing more exotic than the fact that there is possibly no aspect of the universe that won't pique my interest. No wonder the first word of Czech I learnt when I moved into Prague was 'mucholapka' - fly paper (unsurprisingly, the teacher, Katka, was a girl of seven).

Flypaper. There's possibly no better description of my mind. I was warned once that being interested in everything might lead to a complete and irreversible trivialisation of all points of reference. Intellectually, you become as good as a used up airgun cartridge. It's like stretching a piece of string beyond its spring constant. You ruin it. Broaden your horizons till they track the self same line that straddles the heavens and the sea. Your sense of self, along with mind, integrity of thought, soul and soulfulness will be all but lost in the cold vastness of the blind mirror surface of reality. Your intellective self will dissolve...

I am 45 years of age now and this does not seem to have happened to me. Not yet. Maybe I'm immune. Maybe my mind lacks a spring constant; it is infinitely elastic. Or, to avoid conjuring up singularities like so many convenient epicycles, we might suppose there is a hidden constraint that keeps the stretching and the tolerance of the string to stretching in a functional relation with an asymptotic limit. The skyline would then be a Saccheri parallel - one of an infinite number that can pass through the vanishing point. As a matter of fact, I think the appellation 'hyperbolic' suits me well. In this space I can broaden my horizons to my heart's content - the skyline will never engulf me, it's just one of a potentially infinite lot.

Whatever is the case, this infatuation with everything that exists becomes explicitly discernible in my more recent work. After a five year break, during which there were times I had to restrain the desire to pick up the paintbrush, a flurry of artistic activity ensued in which just about anything that stole even fleetingly across my mind just had to be cast in paint on paper or canvas. The artist as a mucholapka - the fly is the limit.

Here's one example. I called this Omerta as it was inspired by a reading of Saviano's Gomorra. I did quite a few mafia paintings during this time. In addition to Gomorra, I also read Falcone's Cose di Cosa Nostra and Stajano's Africo.

Omerta

 Africo inspired this painting, which I initially called 'Monte Aspro', eventually changing it to "Village Games'. Whatever, names are not important.

Village Games

 On starting to draw again, I thought of improving my skills so I engaged in still lifes. The more interesting of them involved crumpled up pieces of paper on a tabletop. Unfortunately, I have no photos of those nor any idea where they ended up but you could say they were strange as far as strange can be in any way defined in the mind of a mucholapka.

Still life with salmon

And here's a nice homage to Eiko Ishioga, my favourite costume designer of all time.

Concubine

The Impaler

Oh well, the list just continues. I was like something wild that was set free after a very long time in captivity. My mind reeled. Take this one, 'the Empath'. Believe it or not, it was inspired by an episode of the same name in the Star Trek Original series and an old photo of a baby boy being baptised somewhere in Sicily.  The empath as a Jesus figure that takes on the pain of the world by letting it visit upon his body instead.

The Empath

 It took me years until I finally understood what is meant by the phrase/incantation/article of faith 'he died for our sins'. It was an academic article on the figure of the Madonna that appeared in Prospect magazine that opened my eyes. There it was explained the concept has its origins in the Hebrew Passover tradition in which the High Priest would take two lambs (replaceable with 2 goats, without loss of meaning) and he would slaughter one of them and sprinkle its blood all over the temple. Then he would smear some of the remaining blood on the other animal, which would be then sent out of the city as the bearer of sin (hence the origin of the appellation 'scape-goat', which incidentally is a lamb -beranek- in Czech). The figure of Jesus, then, combines both animals - the one to be slaughtered and the scapegoat/lamb. His blood cleans the temple like the slaughtered lamb and, at the same time, he carries off our sins as a scapegoat dying like a criminal on the cross.

The rest of the artwork was produced just as randomly as it is listed here. There's no need for explanations - some were born in dream images, others were inspired by fancy thoughts, or challenging concepts. In short, anything that moved inside my head...

With Friends

Drexciya

City harvest

Night horse

 Some are versions of masterpieces of great masters. The following two are from Rembrant. The motivation? Same as for the still lifes - to learn to paint better.

Diana (After Rembrant)

The Autopsy (after Rembrant)

Chiaroscuro

 Eventually I came back to Malta, right in the Summer and I just swam and swam and swam and naturally, I also had to paint that.

Sliema Jetty

Mephistopheles *

The following one, 'Flies' I originally wanted to call 'A Haiku Moment' or, maybe 'Flies: a Haiku moment'. But names are not important, so I settled for flies. The reason for invoking Haikus is maybe important, however. See, during this time - as you can see from the light, I was in Prague (the flies indicate it is Summer and the reflection in the glass suggests early morning to afternoon, but the light is a cold blue so obviously it cannot be Malta, where the summer morning sun sears through your flesh like a redhot drill). I was having problems sleeping at night. Nightmares, to be exact. I didn't know it then but I had a serious case of sleep apnea and I would dream someone was trying to choke me. Night time became a venue for hell rides. I somewhat convinced myself that if I left the lights on, I would not have these nightmares. And it worked. One morning I woke up to see flies and maybe some other odd insect wheel around the light bulb. I switched off the light but they kept there, flying about its glass surface. Then I realised, they must be soaking up the warmth that still emates from the bulb. In a sense, just as I had done during the night, seeking comfort from a bulb. This is the reason I wanted to call it 'a Haiku moment.'

There are more paintings I could post and I will post them, along with drawings and sketches but let's call this one a day.