The Gambit of Gaia

The “Gambit of Gaia” is part two in my series that started with “That Old Bald Cheater”.

Before reading this blog, I'd really encourage you to take a moment, look at the image above and figure out what this piece means to you. 

I am about to spill the beans below on what it means to me which may affect your relationship with the piece. 

I almost want to say don’t read on if you don’t want to alter your experience with this painting, but that would make this blog pointless….. So read on (((:

My intent in this artwork is to continue the storyline of “That Old Bald Cheater” and to bring in my representation of life battling against time and death. Yet it is still all one big game. 

The character in the distance is loosely based on Kronos, the god of time, and the character in the foreground, a reinvention of my Lotus Flowered businessman “The Peregrine Man”, loosely based on Gaia, the goddess of Earth. She is a revitalizing element filled with hope, love and regeneration, but yet just a simple piece on the playing board. 

The story is also loosely based on Gaia’s deception of Kronos in Greek Mythology, using it as an analogy of how we need to trick time and death to gain our own advantage and even more important, safety.  

The reason I am taking it in this direction is because I often battle my own mind regarding life, death and time. 

In a recent blog of mine, based on “That Old Bald Cheater”, I delved deeper into my relationship with death which is quite powerful, reflective and has often been regrettable. I am also very well aware that placing focus on a problem also has the ability to bring it to life, hence my battle against my own mind.

Based on the Placebo Effect, I have no doubt that we are all a manifestation of our own thoughts, so I work on a daily basis to strengthen my mind and battle the invisible reaper that I have somehow allowed to take form in my life. Thankfully, I have almost beaten him. 

The curse of a surrealist is that to come up with an idea, I really have to think a lot… and I mean a lot. These are all rabbit holes in which I love going down, but not all of them land in a pile of cute little baby bunny rabbits. Sometimes I miss the bunnies and land in the shit. 

Yet it is all a part of personal exploration and growth. 

In this artwork I like to think that my positive mind is represented by Gaia and it is regenerating at a rapid pace. Although Kronos has come into the game, he is still in the distance and the game has just begun. This game requires a clever gambit on my behalf. 

The regeneration of life around Gaia’s feet is a representation of comfort, growth and positivity. The crows, although often seen as a grim symbol, represent a little known fact that they were used by vikings to guide a boat to shore. 

They were carried aboard to help the ship's navigator determine where there was land. Instinctively the crow would head directly to land allowing the navigator to plot the correct pathway in bad visibility and weather. 

We never really know that our decisions have us headed in the right direction, and we can all use a mechanism to help us find the right direction. 

In this piece the crows have not really sorted out their path, so it is all still in disarray.

Another element I have added into this piece is money. Something I have in the past had a deep love and hate of, and again another game I am often playing with. If you throw a bunch of it into the picture, our inner compass can be thrown way off direction.  

This is yet another battle I have faced for many years as an artist, so naturally it plays a role in my work. Money has brought me more doubt and pain than any other illness I have had in my life. Yet again another curse of the artist's lifestyle. Mine in particular was a 20 year battle. 

But yet any negative reaction should be dealt with, and once again it is a battle I am winning as represented in this piece. Gaia is ignoring it. 

So now I have explained these thoughts, I hope it gives you a better picture of the message behind this piece from my point of view. 

Much of what I depict in my work is from my own experience, but it is up to you to figure out what this piece means to you. I have placed these elements into the fold to push you into your own line of thinking and interpretation of the work. 

I guess the right way to look at this blog from my point of view is to hope that you saw the piece before reading this and came up with your own experience.

A closing thought….

I like to share these thoughts as this is my only active way of capturing what is going on inside of my head. 

Two elements that play a huge role in this piece for me are fear and money. 

I have always believed fear is a gift. It is the compass that guides us to what we need to learn, experience or face. I have always learned incredibly important lessons from facing it or by following it where it took me. 

Money is the other thing that I’d like to bring attention to, as it has always owned all of the above points for me. I have been in fear of not being able to pay rent, buy food, buy art supplies or even see family. The fear of it over the years has forced me to solve it, but being the honest soul that I am, the journey has taken much longer than most. 

I remember taking a business class in a community centre in 2010, and of all people teaching it was my now close friend Roger Watt, mentioned in my last blog. 

One of our tasks was to create a vision board, placing all of our desires and goals on it. 

To much of the class's shock, I put a big pile of money smack in the middle of the vision board. The only person to fully support me with this decision was Roger. Personally I could not fault my logic, and it started to reveal everyone else's fear of money. 

Having money doesn’t mean that I am chasing my own private super yacht, three mansions and a supermodel wife, which is often associated with it. All it means to me is that I can have the freedom to create the art that I want. No more would I have to bend to colour trends, genres or popular subject matter. I would be free to paint what I like and that has always been my most single minded goal. 

I have always believed that, as Pablo Picasso put it, "I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money", not hindered by the next rent check, food bill or gas price increase. Just free from the thought of it to be me and experience what I need to experience to advance my art. 

To come to terms with the class’s reaction had me second guessing my decision for years to come, especially when it comes to art and the selling of it. In so many cases, attaching money as a goal when it comes to art is considered selling out, whereas the missing logic on this is that the money allows us to be who we need to be. The freedom from money allows self exploration, rather than spending those hours working in a pub. 

It was the selling out and meeting market demand in my early days that got me to where I am now. I learned every artistic skill possible, I learned how buyers think and I built a following that was so very keen to see me grow and support my journey. 

Now if the drive and  fear for money wasn’t there, accompanied by the fearful risks I took to be an artist, who knows where I would have landed. I can almost certainly say that you wouldn’t be looking at this artwork here and now. 

I’d bet I would still be working in the hospital on the Gold Coast in Australia. 

Thank you for reading. It really means a lot to me as this is where I truly leave my heart on my sleeve.