Joseph: Yes, New Zealand! Come over and paint sometime, f'in awesome landscape!
One Two: Thanks again man!
Dark Sketch: Glad it helped!
Rotten Pocket: Thank you! I'll post the description about the piece for you below.
Had a mean plein air trip with probably the preeminant landscape painter in Nz, Freeman White that culminates in a gallery show over the last week. Here's a link to a little ig reel
Ig reel
Four years ago I got news that my brother Bobby had passed away in Belgium. He had issues with mental health which resulted in alcohol addiction issues. After being incommunicado for 8 months previously, after a steady deterioration in behaviour , I got news that he was found dead in his apartment. He had essentially melted into the floorboards. We could not get a cause of death.
The day before having it confirmed (on my birthday) and before I would tell my mother, she, not knowing any of this, had a dream in which he had come to her and told her he was very happy he was going to a new house, that was "very nice, but very far away, and that the real estate agent was coming to take him", and that she must not worry. He then turned around and walked into the house, and the dream ended. She mentioned how happy he looked. She seemed bemused.
I asked her to draw the house (rotunda at right of image) The next morning I had to tell her that her first son had passed.
The vine-like growth within the skull, represents the battle with his addictions, the mind virus. The two ball like structures to the left of the head are slime mould, that can grow during decomposition.
Teeth are teeth
The waterfalls harken back to Victoria Falls in Zambia where I was born and Iguacu falls in Brazil, which we both were at together during somewhat happier times. He loved waterfalls.
The large figures in the background are a "mother and child" statue found in Malawi where we grew up, one was in the room he was found in
The dark clouds, I call the Dreamweaver; A weaver of the narratives that we believe our lives are about, coming to dispel the dream narrative. More on this one later 'praps.
I did a digital sketch, in order to process all this at the time, but it only really felt right to do it justice now in white chalk, on black paper, in a very iterative and intuitive process different to what I have worked in for a while now. It felt cathartic