Resurrection (Zombies!)

I realized that I've never written about Memories of Enemies show from last October. I was waiting for a chance to scan the artworks, but no avail. For the death of me, I could not find a way to scan 30X40" painting and 50X60" drawings. So here are the photographs of the pieces for Memories of Enemies.

Out of All Them Bright Stars I
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
40X30"

The title was from Nancy Kress' short story by the same name.

This piece was painted during Nuit Blanche Toronto 2010. I've never got to see Nuit Blanche. I either had to do work, help my friends with their art projects or work on my own project (piggy-backing the festival). During 2010 Nuit Blanche, I was busy painting for "Memories of Enemies" show. All the monsters (or minerals from alien landscape) are crying because I was feeling a little sad. I could hear the people having fun outside from my studio. No matter how many times people told me that I didn't miss much, I could not help but to dwell on the things I've missed. Haunted house at the old Bay station on Nuit Blanche few years ago for an instance. How magical is that?! The old Bay station is below the current Bay station. It is abandoned, but sealed from the public. A scene from Matrix was filmed there, apparently. A haunted house in such a strange place sounds like an amazing idea.

Bit of a closer shot. I wish I had a better camera.

Ambidextrous
Mixed Media on Paper
50X60"

This one was inspired by a dream. In the dream, I said, "I wish I were ambidextrous." Then this girl walked toward me and said, "If you cut off your right hand, you'd use your left hand more."
My mom was definitely upset by this piece. She called me after visiting the gallery. I asked what she thought of the show. She said, "uh... your pieces weren't good. Why do you draw violent stuff?" Ha ha ha... Thanks mom!
This is the first "violent stuff" I've done in a long time. I grew out of gratuitous violence in my early twenties to make ma mama proud (..not?).

I have a small drawing version of this giant drawing. Size comparison.

Why Me?

Mixed Media on Paper

50X60"

This is really bad, but I actually forgot the name of this piece. I have a strong feeling that it might have been 'Why Me?'. The green stripes on the trees are dessert take-out bag from Starbucks. I LOVE how they look. I actually cannot eat anything they sell, so I asked for the empty bags. Nice people at Starbucks gave me a whole bunch. I'm not a coffee drinker (I see through space and time continuum if I drink a bit of coffee. And act like a squirrel on acid), but I am thankful for Starbucks. When I was travelling alone in Belgium, I had a wise idea of staying overnight at the airport instead of paying for an extra night of lodging (I learned to never do that again). Um, that airport was cold, dirty and sketchy. Then there was Starbucks. With its 24 hour glowing glory and friendly people... I ordered smoothies and they let me sleep in a comfortable, warm couch. Thank you, Starbucks. Oh and providing me with uniform quality bathrooms wherever in the world I go. Thank you.

Enough blabbering nonsense! And commencing on more blabbering.
I promised a zombie posting. Resurrecting my old art from last October and resurrected dead people. How fitting is that?!

Quite recently, I found out that most people don't have nightmares every night. I have nightmares every single night and I thought it was normal. I was very surprised to learn otherwise. Someone suggested that it's because I watch too many horror movies. Me loves them zombie movies! Very often, I have epic zombie apocalypse nightmares. Epic, yo.

I actually wrote a whole section of zombie movie recommendations but then I quickly felt incompetent. I have a very bad taste and low standard. To give you an idea of my bad taste, Doom made into my list. Delete delete delete my writing. I suppose, part of being an adult is editing oneself. I'm just going to introduce this one:

This is the DVD I have. It has a very embarrassing cover, I know. People laugh when I pull this one out of my shelf.
Anchor Bay re-released much more tasteful cover recently. 

Dellamorte Dellamore
This is my absolute favourite movie in the world. No other movie ever topped this for me. The title means 'Of Death, Of Love.' This movie accurately portrays: love, death, life and bleakness of it all. With its poetic dialogue, strange music and seriously attractive visuals - it is a mesmerizing. At the same time, it doesn't take itself seriously and it's loads of fun. Dread that is not balanced with a hint of humour is just dreadful. There are countless scenes I often think about: Anna Falchi standing under the moonlight, in front of a fake cemetery castle, holding white flowers; Anna Falchi slowly rising in the mortuary saying, "yes, yes my love. It'll be better with me than the others" while Rupert Everett watches; aaaaah, there are too many to list.

The special effects are wonky. You see fishing lines for floating ghost lights. But I just don't care. It is from the time when digital special effects were scarcely available (or too expensive). There is something very charming and even more real about handmade special effects. Imperfection is beautiful.

Every time my relationship fails, I throw my hands in the air and go, "I'm through with love," like Everett does in the movie. It is strange how much 'love' occupies a chunk of life... and DEATH!