Ethiopia Stella

Last year my lovely fiend Mandy Shannon passed away from Pancreatic Cancer. She was a beautiful person who loved life and touched so many people with her exuberance, sense of humour and love of other people.

Mandy was a Registered Nurse who for much of her career cared for so many sick people - many terminally ill - and devoted so much of her life to caring for others…

She left behind Tim her husband, and daughters Eva, and Stella (who was in-utero when she became ill), as well as Kiarra Tim’s daughter (& proud big sister). Stella is a miracle and very much the star her namesake suggests.

In January I was asked by some of her friends to produce some paintings to be auctioned and raffled at a benefit night for Tim and the girls. Of course I jumped at the chance to contribute.

Gerberas were Mandy’s favorite flowers & I felt that was what we needed; flowers kind of echo the shape of the sun in a child’s mind and we all know how they respond to the sun - which is our own star – just like Stella is to Tim, Eva, Kiarra and all their family & friends...

So if anyone is available please pop along to the Shining Star Benefit Night at North Sydney Leagues Club in Cammeray - it will be certain to be a wonderful evening for a wonderful cause.

See link below (please cut & paste into your browser)

http://www.norths.com.au/ContentFiles/NorthsLeagues/Documents/SHINING_STAR_2011[1]%20Updated.pdf



BTW Ethiopia means 'Shining' in latin... Interesting...

Wez Wally

Commission for friends...

Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The less I know the better…

Tyrone Jenkins & Chet

A little illustration done for a pal of mine – unsure of the purposes but I suspect it’s for he and his partner in crime to manipulate events to cause trouble for other people for their own amusement…

Good luck to them I say; life’s to short to take everything too seriously…

Emily

Portrait of a person I knew for a couple of years, but never in any way really got to know...

American

Portrait of woman I knew for a short time, what feels like a long time ago.

The Waterfall

It’s an art school cliché that the most naïve and fresh out of high school student will always paint a waterfall; just like they will always develop large, underexposed glossy black and white images of their dog or cat in their first Photography lessons. What’s important and touching to their impressionable eye and sensibilities is banal shite to the initiated mind and trained eye.

I grew up near a waterfall and typical of most parts of Australia it was either trickling like a gutter in dry spells or gushing like a Hydroelectric Plant after periods of rain.

The local council have built a walking path through there in recent years; it’s kind of lost it’s charm as it was such a difficult spot to climb down to many people didn’t bother making the effort. I honestly believe there will be more damage done to the forest rather than prevented by visitors. Idiots in grass roots council can never be told.

I have done a series of painting relating to the waterfall over the years, because it was a place my friends and I visited and had adventures in; later we drank booze there by the fire and took girls. It was a magical kind of place; the constant running water was kind of meditative; like white noise in the background.

I like the idea of it being a secluded and relaxing place but with an element of danger. When I began this doodle I had included a figure of a man looking down on the woman lying in the sun below. I painted him out of it; it made me uncomfortable but perhaps it was a mistake. Who knew what the man’s motives were. Was he a dangerous man, looking to harm her… or just looking..? Was he a gay guy walking his dog, admiring her fashion sense..? Was he her boyfriend, bringing her some lunch..? I like this ambiguity.

Many feminist thinkers, artists and philosophers have suggested that the waterfall as a motif is a euphemism for the vagina. The meeting point of a valley, moisture, somewhere life springs from. Goodness-gracious. How embarrassing, he said, mopping his brow. I do like girls, very much actually, but I don’t think I had this in mind.

Or did I..? The collective consciousness may be having the last laugh.



I think the painting needs to be pushed a lot further so I view this as a study; an experiment.


Stay tuned; when I find time I may just be able to get back into the waterfall again.

Study of The Venus de Milo

Lead pencil study of the Venus de Milo

Aphrodite of Milos (Greek: Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Aphroditē tēs Mēlou), better known as the Venus de Milo, one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. Created some time between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite (Venus to the Romans) the Greek goddess of love and beauty. It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at 203 cm (6 ft 8 in) high. Its arms and original plinth have been lost. From an inscription that was on its plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch; it was earlier mistakenly attributed to the master sculptor Praxiteles. It is at present on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Famed for her missing arms, I have always wondered if she was actually playing the banjo.

In all seriousness, archeologists and art historians believe her right arm extended across her torso, her hand resting on her left knee, as if holding up her drapery. The left arm was holding an apple at roughly eye level.

Not every apple will keep the doctor away, least of all a marble one; but aside from her missing arms old father time has been pretty kind to her.