Artist Statement 2024

 Artists Statement 2024

Throwing away the paintings I did when I had low self esteem, feelings of worthlessness, depression, living in the city. Throwing them away is the final stage of release of that trauma. Letting go of that part of my life. 

Along with it comes the throwing away of all the boxes of card-stock and cardboard stockpiled for painting and crafting projects. At the time it felt I did not have time to do everything I wanted to do. However, I did not know that in the pressure-stress of thinking I had run out of time already. 

The huge problem was other people interrupting me. Other people getting in the way with unhelpful comments about how my creative process is a psychological disorder. It’s not a psychological disorder; they are. They are impacting me negatively and disrupting my productivity. When they supersede it damages my self-esteem and prevents me finishing my art. When I ignore them I win because I have confidence from being productive. My purpose of being alive is as an artist, not as a punchbag for negative peoples superiority disorders and power games. I would have been more productive had they simply left me alone to get on with it my way instead of criticising me for doing it my way. 

Throwing away the art which did get finished, because it had attachments to a negative time of my life when I had less self belief, is cathartic. While it does mean a potential loss of income - the one picture stored here which I did show someone else won me a £2K bursary; to put estimated value on the other pictures, most of which nobody else has ever seen. They’re all taking up a room full of space in my house which is considered to be a mental disorder of hoarding by most people who are aware of the situation. People who don’t care enough to actually ask to see the paintings it must be added. 

The process of making art is recognised as a form of therapy and as skills study, which is more valid to the artist than are the finished objects. I studied the Fine Arts at honours degree level. While the paintings do have commercial value and would boost the local economy if they were to be advertised and sold, too many people have been derogatory to me for me to have any incentive to empower those peoples nation and culture. As far as empowering myself is concerned, I need to segregate myself from any attachments from the previous art and craft materials so that other people will accept me instead of describing me as mentally unwell for hoarding. The art has multi-level attachments to my negative self-esteem. I am told the filling of my space with clutter is a psychiatric disorder by people who I do not show my paintings to because I do not trust them to see the paintings after they grind me down instead of accepting how lifestyle is fundamental to productivity and that an artists studio requires materials and resources stored there along with finished works, to create art with. 

So it is no loss to me to throw my art out, or the resources required to make more of it. Other living local artists only want the unused paints for themselves and their kids instead of respecting my art and my need for making it. Nobody cares about the finished art anyway. I used to but I’ve got the hint from social pressure. It’s abnormal. This has liberated me to see all artists for what they are, and what I used to be myself. Art is a product of mental abnormality. All works of art are distractions and delusions no matter what the financial value placed on them by delusional people. 

This decision is liberating for me. To detox from the person I was, someone who struggled to make art and struggled for it to be accepted. By destroying it all, I am more likely to be accepted as a person. I can understand that now. It’s why the mental health people describe my collected sheets of cardboard stored to paint on when I get time, as an attachment disorder to junk, rather than as the tools of a working artist. They have got through to me. 

I would be better with an empty room and no desire to paint. No paintings stored and taking up space. The rare state worker who visits my house would feel comfortable there for all of ten minutes. Which is what this is all about after all. They are the authorities and are therefore the experts on how society should be, to improve it. The problems they cause me will go away. 

By burning them all, I am liberated from all the toxic energies thrown at me by other people. All my charcoal drawings. All my acrylic paintings. They’re bad. They have been bad for me. They are bad for the community. The imagery will be default be bad for the community. They symbolise struggle, depression, repression, toxic rejection of corporate control. They do not symbolise hope, aspiration, success, acceptance, purity. 

Twenty-five years worth of my creative output. It will require a few days of bonfires. I will release to the great spirit all which I have been to purify my way forwards. 

I will be free, I will be happy. People will accept me and say I have healed. I no longer need to make art. I no longer need to waste any more of my energy and time living in a delusion. 

The lesson I have learned is to recognise artists for what they are now. I know because I have evolved beyond that level of awareness into becoming something else. Artists are broken because they do not conform. I accept that to fit in, I must conform. We all should. 

Zen. 

All we need to do is breathe 

until we leave this body. 

It is the greatest inspiration of all.