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kolaboy — The Eternal
Published: 2006-09-08 18:15:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 4709; Favourites: 111; Downloads: 39
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Acrylic on canvas, 16X20.A new piece. I guess when you're dealing with someone who because of age and infirmity are approaching the end or their mortal life, it's natural that the feelings should carry over into your work. Not that I would consciously do such a thing (I never do anything consciously), but the atmosphere is all pervading.
I remember in my childhood dreading that someday my grandparents would die. I would lay awake at night thinking about it. The trappings of death, and the culture that has grown up around the need to do things in a certain (IE expensive) fashion are morbid and horrible to anyone born without a necessary thickness of skin. The seemingly mandatory waltz of gathering, viewing, funeral, the expected graveside emotional striptease. This is a vampiric industry that feeds upon sorrow, and an exploitative one. But, I digress...
I had always had a liking for cemeteries. Not in an unwholesome sense, but rather I found it fascinating that these people were once as alive as I am, and led full lives... but now all that remains is a piece of stone. To call it a monument is mockery. How can a rock represent all that a person was in the course of their life. It's more a backhanded acknowledgment that "once he was, now he isn't".
By the time that my grandparents had died, I had so emotionally distanced myself from it that it was almost anti-climatic. Honestly, I was more upset when Spock died in The Wrath of Khan.
I suppose this ability is a self-preservation mechanism. Belief in an afterlife is also a point of ultimate consolation. It renders the black flower party a meaningless waste.
I think of this a lot lately; imagining this present life from the vantage point of eternity. To say it lends a different perspective and clarifies priorities is an understatement...
I talk too much, pardon the words
"Oh Earth!
Where are the past? - and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors-and we
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more."
Byron.
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Comments: 100
Due to a glitch that dA had recently I am not sure that you got this, but you have been featured here : [link]
Excuss me if you have gotten this twice.
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Your wonderful piece of art has been featured here: [link]
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pretty awesome, I like how you didnt make the girls plastic/fake looking
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I like your images a lot, including the comments (thoughts) you give on them yourself.
Somehow looking at your paintings is calming, but also highly stressing (as often with surreal ones, i think). I like your unique style and use of colors and emotions. Especially in this one.
Your art is very inspiring because it wants you to paint again - it touches something, which is not usual nowdays.
Maybe I should write something about the picture I see ... but it's difficult for me, as it is so dislogded from what I would imagine as eternity (well ... difficult to imagine such a thing anyway)
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my english is horrible, so my post wont be as long as I would like because I cannot find proper words to express my thoughts.
I thind it fascinating -both, the art and the comment that you wrote. that it makes you stare on every detail and just Think. about the time, about the people. about ourself.
thank you for this amazing piece. you probably now it already, but you're very talented.
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our rituals are the self indulgence of the living...and just like the latest wizbang electronic or the greatest new fashion...or that expensive car...we are told we must have them as we do.
My Fathers funeral did not go as planned, so we just talked about him, and remembered him. It was an important lesson.
He was just as dead, he was just as great in life, and he was I am sure, not concerned with any of it anymore.
As for the painting, you don't need me to tell you it's beautiful.
Actually you didn't need the first part of my comment either but there ya go.
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Forgive my lateness, and thank you for such a thoughtful comment
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In the dark, we hear it come. She expects a call, and gets one.
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you are like the reigning god of deviant art and all I can do is worship in awe!
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That explanation reminds me of my son. He is five right now and is obsessing about my mother dying and about dying in general. I try to explain it to him with as much joy as possible so he doesn't fear it. Even still, its a very mysterious happening. I love this piece. I love the innocence in his face and the toys around. The whole thing reminds me of my son.
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I too enjoy a cemetary. I like to go and think about the people buried there, and wonder what sort of things they did. It's very hard as well, for me to think about not existing. I guess it's because there is nothing to compare to it, and as a human, I like to associate. Anyway, it's a beautiful piece of work. The clouds are absolutely astounding.
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You're very much welcome, you're a very talented artist.
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i too share your fascination with graveyards, they fascinate an dintrigue me, and often shake me, disturbing me through and through, i never walk away with a smile on my face but i go back to see again everything that has passed us by... death is a strange and lonely truth of our existance, but we all have to go there and hopefully we'll all be prepared to meet death... my ex had a fear of death and lay awake at night fearing it, and i personally don't feel that fear.. maybe i'm lucky...but i believe all of us will be angels one day all of us will be happy.. as always a wonderful work, you never cease with the beauty of your work, a whole level of melancholy all for your own x
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it has been so long since i have been here....i happened to tiptoe across/near this one. for some reason, it reminded me, when, as a child i visited bodie--an old, abandoned mining town. i was not very old, but i remember wanting to take all the photos by the headstones...to preserve that which must move on...i could not logically wrap my thoughts around my desperation to isolate time; however, i think that this painting sort of does some of that explaining for me--or at least helps me digest the need to comprehend the in and out process of us all. there is a song by tori amos...the beekeeper--i suppose the two combined..you + her...well, i begin to get it...whatever it is..it is more tangible and timeless than it was before when i was standing near gargoyled tombs of trapped miners clawing their way beneath the soil...we weep for what is already freed.
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a subject near to my own heart and soul.
thank you for lending your expression.
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whispers . i talk to the dead and we party
the blue bottle bothers me
i understand the other two choices .
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beautiful painting ... I've been coming back to this many times since you posted ... it's a painting I will have to think about some more yet ...
It's not so much death as all the different perspectives of a person in life ... imagining grandparents as kids or teenagers and all the naughty things they did get up to ... kids as adults ... how do we really know who someone is ... that gets my head flying all over the place ...
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gorgeous.
I absolutely love this, and would give a lot just to see it in real...
I am in love with your style, a mix of past and present, full of meanings and details... thanks for sharing these pieces of genius creation with us.
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wow wow wow
my compliments on
The blue condiment
you are a major influence to me
I talked about you in class last week.
Sincerely,
Alex harrison
ps. those clouds are brilliant
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You've made my day, thank you
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thanks for the description of the work....i like it alot.
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thanks for the description of the work....i like it alot.
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Most interesting.
Cemetaries are interesting palces. They cant help remind you of life.
My favorite part of a cemetary is finding two gravestones of a married couple, and finding that they died weeks or even days apart. They couldnt live without each other.
Eternal love, its a nice idea.
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I think I saw too many of those that were close to me die not to accept death. The last one to go was my grandfather, and even though I was prepared for his death, it still delt me a blow of sorts. He was more of a father to me than my father ever was, and in a way, I lost two people when my phone rang and grandmother's voice spoke the words in a numb tone.
But we all have our ways of saying goodbye, be it before or after those we love have passed on (and god how I hate all those euphemisms, passing on, going...they are dead, and that's it)
But your painting is really amazing, as they always are in a way.
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Hey, I like your words, im not pardoning them. I encourage them!
Adding the Byron poem is also a nice touch.
Interesting work.
I'd like to know what the object is on the ledge in the background that either looks like 2 slugs in a fat contest, or something else brown and pudgy. i cant start interpreting until i know!
maybe they are moonpies with worms.
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Thank ya
The object in question something the doggie might leave on the floor if he's not taken out regularly...
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thank you!
now i can have an idea of my own interpretation.
on the ledge something along the lines of war and blood (red bottle) in the midst of life,
(and in the background - all this bickering means shit) -
the fallen soldier in the blue - the sky - serene. no more fighting.
the car by the yellow, going away from blue, hiding, running, seeking the wrong things, we ignore the big picture in life.
the two women turning their attention away from all that war and shit, and seeking serenety, the place where the fallen toy soldier lays, but to get there, he had to breakthrough a ... hard plastic wall! (it was difficult. a sacrifice. a boundary broken.)
yeah, my interpretation feels like image of oily rainbows on water - i can see it, but if i try to touch it - it gets messed up and breaks apart. bleh. hehe, fun to try anyway.
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This is wonderful, the way you used the colors and the dark and light. As I was reading your comments a song about death came on my media player.
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Ah, it's little happenings like that that lend a bit of extra meaning to life
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I see a lot of science fiction in your work. Not the campy conventional kind, but the kind that tastes a bit surreal, but more approachable than pure surrealism. I'm not sure I see any death in this painting. But I do sense a supernatual presence. I sense that in a lot of your work. The only grandparent I actually knew was my mother's mother. A fine lady but when she was dieing I knew she was ready for it, so it didn't bother me too much. Others who were very close to me have died since as well. To see their bodies lifeless made for me explicit and tangible that they were no longer in that body and therefore there was more to them than the physical self.
Oh, really good painting by the way...
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I agree with your attitude there
Thanks for looking/reading
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