– As Good as the next art I design –
about me
About the artist
Since I began painting in January 1994, several threads in painting and life have interested me much more passionately than most others. I love the idea of painting as a first draft. For me, that connects with Don Peebles’ idea that he likes an artist to reveal the messiness of their research. I haven’t developed many connections with so-called “representational” painting – The question in painting which most excites me is: “What if colour has a life of its own?”
The first time I saw this question was in the following piece written by the French painter Sonia Delaunay in 1949. It reads: “Up to the present, painting has been nothing but photography in colour, but the colour was always used as a means of describing something. Abstract art is a beginning towards freeing the old pictorial formula. But the real new painting will begin when people understand that colour has a life of its own, that the infinite combinations of colour have a poetry and a language much more expressive than the old methods. It is a mysterious language in tune with the vibrations, the life itself, of colour. In this area, there are new and infinite possibilities.” I find exploring these possibilities exhilarating.
I’m looking for soul connections – using colours which resonate and reverberate in my soul. Sometimes when I paint I like to simply compose a painting as you can see in “Three Flowers Seen Among Blues and Greens With A Leaping Orange Shemozzle”.
On other occasions I like to begin a painting as a composition – then constantly interrupt it and improvise upon it as you can see in “My Ken Saro-Wiwa Painting.”
I also like to pull ideas apart and put them together again differently. An example of that in my painting is “Sunset Under Alabaster Dolls”, which I painted upside-down so I wouldn’t be trying to control the effects I was getting.
So I’m looking to interrupt familiar patterns – mine – and those given by our inherited social contexts. I notice when I learn most, it’s in painting.
Another thing I’m looking for is – have I done my job? My job’s to re-enchant the world – to communicate freshness and wonder to the whole human family right now. As a painter, I stand for painting out of a spirit of wonder, of miracles in the making, and for the re-enchantment of our world.
My “job” as a painter is to create missions around painting which light people up. What I mean by that is that painting can both be about originality and technique and it can also be about making profoundly fundamental social and financial differences within each and every community those painters and their paintings serve.
For example, by selling my paintings and donating US$1million each to Amnesty International and the Mary Potter Hospice respectively – both those organisations then have more money to fund the next stage in their development, which in turn benefits our communities. So I’m committed to having painting help with all of that, as well as being original. Now that really lights me up!
My purpose is to create miracles in the making which light you up completely. It is like I am constantly asking you – what could I paint for you that would most inspire you today?
Mission
The purpose of my life, what I am here to give is to be wonderful. I will sing, read, write and paint as if my life depends on it – because it does! I will play. I stand for making music with all the colours left in. I stand for creating a new word which would tear me open, making us all capable of anything. I stand for painting out of a spirit of wonder, of miracles in the making, and for the re-enchantment of our world. I stand for having my life be used by questions such as:
- what if we begin today to develop an unassailable and majestic sense of our own value?
- how much love can you stand in your life?
- what if a painting could show you what your soul looks like?
One of the tasks I have set myself is to bring love to your life such that you say you’ll never ever get over it. I stand for being the conversation you say most profoundly shifted the quality of your day.
My epitaph reads: You are loved.
Vision
Who I am is my stand for loving you. For you simply being the best there is! You’re unique.There’s no one like you and yet – we all are! I stand for celebrating who you are.
I stand for your power and your grace. You’re exciting! I stand for supporting people in their realisation of their dreams on their terms in their world. I stand for you being free. No one has the right to stub their heel on the very throat of your song. I stand for generating opportunities in your listening such that you step into conceiving pertinent questions for you whose inspirational possibilities will demand your life. Don’t give up! I stand for investing you with inspirational unrest. You will take principle – centred actions within the unfolding excitement of the miracle of your being alive. I stand for sharing our relatedness and excitement and wonder with each other. The flash of our human spirit. I stand for my family – and you are all a part of that family! I stand for lightening up a little. There’s enough anxious people out there without you getting varicose veins in your foreheads as well! I stand for risk – for everything being up for grabs. I’m committed to disappearing beyond the edge of where the now in me currently lives! I stand for raising at lease US$1 million each for our Mary Potter Hospice here in Wellington, New Zealand, and for Amnesty International by selling two of my paintings & donating all the proceeds to them. I stand for play, fun & kicks out of life itself. I stand for music with all the colours left in. I stand for writing fit to wring tears from the stars. I stand for inventing new words which will serve your great great grandchildrens’ grandchildren. I stand for the Nobel Prize for Literature. I stand for painting out of a spirit of wonder, of miracles in the making, and for the re-enchantment of our world. I stand for playing huge – for living my life out loud with generosity – in large letters, deeply cut & strongly gilded. Playing small doesn’t serve the world. I stand for Infinity. In a moment of Infinity I see an unending unfolding of undiscovered country. If the spark within your human spirit doesn’t go off – then nothing else will! I stand for Humility. In a moment of Humility I’m tiny, small & real. I stand for titanic imaginings! I summon my Will – open up & simply Make It New! I stand for setting an example of outrageously inspirational, Visionary Leadership that sets your heart & soul on fire!
Above all – dig deep – Find your Joy! Let’s Dance & Sing!
I appreciate & acknowledge your support. Together – nothing can stop us! – Let’s Do It!