“Retrosynthesis(Ekphrasis): The Cognitive Elite” at Blenheim House, Randwick
Overview, Photograph: Jessica Maurer.Ekphasis:
Directly below there is a series of explainations as to why these paintings happened, that may or may not be misleading. The idea of ekphrasis, to learn between disciplines like this appealed to my sense that sometimes things were better painted, better written. I realised that I have always made paintings as a way of understanding the world, which is why I do not concern myself so much with their alleged end-goal as luxury goods. I make them for myself and I think about things as I look at them and they are mine. I make them out of waste products and they are cheap and very precious to me. These paintings can be explained in many different ways, perhaps as one would use a Powerpoint, but more layered, textural. They are also much better in person. Realising that there is something fundamentally oral about my “writing”, I come to terms with the way that I organise things through refrain, an a-chronology like in an epic poem with occassional image to jog memory.
“The Cognitive Elite” is a term favoured by billionaire, Peter Thiel, describing “innovation”. It was quite funny to me as someone cognitively impaired, and seeing as this “elite” seems to look a lot like it always had (despite our best efforts at representation). So I paint them, these invisible rulers alongside the invisible thinkers and artists. The subjects are sometimes awful sometimes excellent, a throughly ambivalent insight into things and people that I am thinking about. I would not paint the “others” among the artists and thinkers because we are watched quite enough, and our objectivity challenged by the objectification. I wanted the room to overwhelm the viewer with a sense of mens’ eyes upon them, sharing my experience like a novel of old.
“Counterpoise (Varoufakis Vittorioso)” MMXXIII. Acrylic on found board. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“Another Reformation Meat Diet: The Princes (Looks/Trade-off)” MMXXIII.Acrylic on (discarded) board. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“Pure Colonial Backwaters/Academic Art (Don’t Cross Daddy)” MMXXIII.Acrylic on (found) (drawing) board. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“Shaking the Penis Tree (Jan Verwoert sex dream after the Massa Marittima Mural, lockdown 2020)” MMXXIII.Oil, rabbit-skin glue, stretched poly/cotton. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“(Projection) Aesthetic Ascetic: Christ on a Wine Press” MMXXIII.Lime wash, stretched cotton (discarded bed sheet). Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
Detail: “(Projection) Aesthetic Ascetic: Christ on a Wine Press” MMXXIII.
Lime wash, stretched cotton (discarded bed sheet).
“Cultural Capital/Sun King (Hipster Fascism)” MMXXIII.(Found) Masonite, acrylic. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“Print Screen (Cast-Light Horology)” MMXXIII.Oil on (discarded) glass. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“(Projection) On Reflection,” MMXXIII.Oil on glass. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“Distribution/Consumption (Blue Origin of the Gods),” MMXXIII
(Found) Masonite, acrylic. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
“Benevolence (The Emperor’s New Clothes/You Can Leave Your Hat On) ” MMXXIII.Acrylic on (found) (drawing) board. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
Photograph: Jessica Maurer.
