This work - 1975-1985 - ran parallel to what I was doing to make a living as a paste-up and graphic/fashion illustrator in advertising agencies in Trinidad, West Indies.in the seventies and early eighties.
It took its cues from the erotic iconoclasm of Beardsley (Art Nouveau had gone through a resurgence of interest in the sixties) and the violent sexuality of Heavy Metal. No colour - well, minimal, at most - and, whether because of technical ineptitude or just plain laziness - who knows - very few pieces were ever actually finished.
I was learning, however - patience, aptitude, technique - on the job eight to four, and in the privacy and security of my own studio, breaking out with these - in the seventies, in our society - pretty outlandish and often blasphemous pieces which were really forays into my own universe.
The banal, ridiculous nature of much of what I was doing
in the agencies, and the constrictive suffocating attitudes of our society to sex, sexuality - in fact eroticism of any kind (up to today a simple nudes are still labeled as �pornography�) - squeezed this stuff out of me like toothpaste from a tube.
They were devised solely for my own delectation, whether as sexual fantasy or religious iconoclasm, and most of them were never shown - after all, I was still learning how to disguise myself, in life as well as art, and the concessive, obsessive nature of most of them relegated them to almost total secrecy. |
