Busytinsnips Blog
WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?
Clockwise: Electric Everything, Sotherbys, Bowie quote, Berlin Wall 1988. © M Dawson
Last Friday night I started to paint and threw my normal caution with acrylic paint to the winds of fate! I think I've always had a reluctance to use a lot of paint probably due to lean times in the past and some trepidation.
Anyway, I threw paint on plywood and started a crude face, added a body and some arms and suddenly I thought, this is mildly reminiscent of David Bowie! Ok I'm not going to claim a perfect or even partial likeness but there is, to me, an essence in an expressionistic way. The essence of his Berlin period with the arm gestures from the expressionists in the Brücke Museum.
After this revelation I added the eyes and started to wonder how this had bubbled up from the depths of my subconscious. Now, Bowie is never far away from my thoughts, there isn't a week (sometimes a day) that goes by without some of his music adding a soundtrack to whatever I'm doing. I have admired him since I was a teenager; I first visited Berlin in 1988 primarily because of him, I have explored his references and discovered so many artists (Basquiat for one), writers, thinkers and cultural icons down the years due to his passions. His influence on me is immeasurable.
In November 2016 I went to Sotheby's, London to see Bowie the Collector before the auction. It was very sad for me. I know auctions are about money and sales but to see so many rich people checking lots like carrion birds around the carcass upset me. If only the collection could have been offered as a loan to a gallery so that generations could be inspired, moved infected with enthusiasm . . .
The highlights of the show for me were the two Basquiat paintings, Frank Auerbach, Erich Heckel and Peter Lanyon.
Anyway, I threw paint on plywood and started a crude face, added a body and some arms and suddenly I thought, this is mildly reminiscent of David Bowie! Ok I'm not going to claim a perfect or even partial likeness but there is, to me, an essence in an expressionistic way. The essence of his Berlin period with the arm gestures from the expressionists in the Brücke Museum.
After this revelation I added the eyes and started to wonder how this had bubbled up from the depths of my subconscious. Now, Bowie is never far away from my thoughts, there isn't a week (sometimes a day) that goes by without some of his music adding a soundtrack to whatever I'm doing. I have admired him since I was a teenager; I first visited Berlin in 1988 primarily because of him, I have explored his references and discovered so many artists (Basquiat for one), writers, thinkers and cultural icons down the years due to his passions. His influence on me is immeasurable.
In November 2016 I went to Sotheby's, London to see Bowie the Collector before the auction. It was very sad for me. I know auctions are about money and sales but to see so many rich people checking lots like carrion birds around the carcass upset me. If only the collection could have been offered as a loan to a gallery so that generations could be inspired, moved infected with enthusiasm . . .
The highlights of the show for me were the two Basquiat paintings, Frank Auerbach, Erich Heckel and Peter Lanyon.
My acrylic painting has the title: Electric Everything / Another Realm / Spangled Now with an additional line Memories of Berlin 1988 written on the reverse. It is my tiny tribute to a cultural titan.
