Abyss , the journey of a painting from studio to gallery.

I was documenting quite a lot of my work last spring as I was having a crowdfunding campaign to fund my exhibition next summer. I made a painting video that would serve as the introduction to the campaign.

This is the awkward, long version (11:05min) of the video without my voice over. This shows the beginning of the painting and rest of the process follows in the pictures.

Exhibition was named Depth Bum and the painting would be called Abyss. The whole idea of doing a crowdfunding was terrifying for an introvert like me but it was also something that fascinated me to no end. I had burned my self on another prospect that i was dealing with my previous exhibition and needed to rise above that. A lot of soul searching endued along this process of putting my self out there in this uncomfortable performance, trying to appeal to strangers for their support . The campaign failed of course, for a lot of reasons; for one I am not one to capture audiences with my personality and spread enthusiasm nor did I even manage to appeal to but few of my friends who bought a couple of drawings. There were those days you'd just want to sleep and never wake up, but I pushed my self through them, keeping my self brainwashed with the optimism of some silly 80's songs. What a feeling, anyone? I'm glad I did it. Even if only for the experience for my self and example for others, but I think there is something powerful in the act beyond that.

As for the title. Guess I could mention I've been a big fan of Nietzsche for time, though I may be the worst person to have discussion about his work. "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."
Also last spring I watched the movie Das Boot for the first time and was moved to tears. What I had thought to be a boring old war picture, turned out the be incredible portayal of humanity. The exhibition name translated as Depth Bum would be inspired from the depth charges used in the movie, but refers to hope for our society to reach beyond the facade and personal wish to connect. Meditation had also been a thing for me and maybe there had been a wish to rid myself of negative emotions through it. Though ideally it would be a tool to awareness and acceptance. So that is the story of the golden Buddha face breaking into pieces and revealing the chaotic mess that is underneath it all.

First phase

Juicy

I had little trouble finding the right yellow. These were banned for a while, grandpa had left me a selection of these. I thought they were all the same color at first...

Right there!

It is probably finished, let's pose.

Nope. It was garbage. Had to rage a little.

Fortunes of war

Intermission

Intermission over

I collected my self and tried again. worked a little bit more from here.

No funds to spend on invitations, so its more DIY time.

Very satisfying

Finished painting on the gallery wall

That's it. It is a lot to take in at once. My friend said it's something like the guitar walls in some Devin Townsend song. Appreciated that. Other than that, I think only thing that was said about this particular piece was that the colors look different from the invitation, which was true. Not sure how I feel about it myself now. It was born under idea of being watched and me trying to perform my best painting it.