08/11/2016
The final version of the live painting that you may or may not have seen at Manifest this year by Nelson aka Nonsky - Artist/Art
The Hermit Manifest
1mx1.5m Acrylic paint on canvas.
By me: Nelson Lance Donsky AKA Nonsky
NB: Work has been sold however let me know in the comments if you’re interested in purchasing prints.
Musical recommendation to accompany this artwork: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
There's a Tl:Dr at the bottom if this is to long but it deserves a proper write up.
So what to say about this painting? So much time and emotion went into this. It was painted at the Manifest festival in Queensland over an extremely good Sunday night and then over several days once arriving back home. The original idea for this, was one I had in a dream around three years ago in that surrealist way, but I would maybe point out it was half sleep, only on the edges of it. Awake enough to drag myself from bed and grab a pencil and with sleepy gestures traced the city, the ships and the hooded figures climbing up the hillside.
I think a part of it was reminding me of that feeling at Woodford, of climbing up to the top of the hill on new year’s day to watch the sunrise with the sobering crowd nestled in blankets, sharing chocolates as the Buddhist monks chant there ceremonies on the hilltop stage and the Woodfordia sign. That moment has a fundamental part of my life, showing nature and humans to be a sacred whole, as fu**ed and flawed as we are in our terrible ferocity, selfishness and cowardice. As awful and destructive we are, our fire, and our harnessing of fire is to me that symbol of humanity. Harnessing fire, using it to destroy and give life, creating charcoal to smudge on the cave wall to tell stories about the animal gods of the forest.
Fire is taken from the sun as all life does, and true to form fire has a life of itself, if left without observation it will burn down the whole dammed forest. Sometimes a forest fire is needed, in Australia especially it is a part of how plants reproduce, the seeds waiting in the foliage to crack in the inferno of the fire. But fire is only alive in that it is an active process contained within it only the life force of entropy and the transitioning of fuel from one form into another.
Energy neither created nor destroyed, it merely changes forms ala the law of the conservation of energy, or equivalent exchange as FMA has taught me echoes the meaning of Karma; in a closed system where all things are seen as one, every action of the individual is the doing of the collective. In that way the first fire can be seen as the same thing, the same process as any fire seen today, the same symbol. I see the elements in people, when I think to look which correspond to elements; air heads, wishy washy types, fiery blooded types, stoners, etc and those elements are all here together. However to represent humanity as a whole, at this point in history we humans are the fire, and we do not know what the new day will bring.
Who will burn down the forest?
Who will burn down the city?
Who brought fire to the city?
The sublime is meant to be the overwhelming beauty and awe of nature, and here I feel successful, as nature and humanity ripple at the edges and bend. Stylistically I was looking in part to imitate the impressionists, no style has ever so exquisitely captured the quality of light, in staring at their artworks I have later to have moments of seeing the world, particularly in the ripples of water where I see that impressionism is just painting with light and colour, finally as the style intend leaving the blurry borders of reality and into the dreaming, where reality is endlessly discussed. On this theme of reality and perceptions I attached a pair of 3D glasses to this artwork on a string so as to experience the work from a new perspective, similar to how a colour blind person might see the world.
Like all live paintings one cannot help but get the feeling of being a process, a catalyst for the inspiration you have lived through and emphasised by the present moment to do the work of gods and magicians; prestidigitate. Conjure, from the nothing through your body which is your mind and soul nothing less than a fingerprint of an atmosphere, distilled from music, transmuted by the joy in people’s faces, this is humanity at its best at a festival and by painting it I can savour it and share it with the world like the sublime and surreal chocolate sunrise at Woodford. My live paintings become solidifications of the experience, sharing that value as the emotions of that time and place are tied into it. Oh, there’s also the ineffable qualities of both the experience of art and festivals which are captured too, but they’re ineffable so that’s that.
Art in all forms embraced with love and given sovereign authority by the presence of a festival similarly to how an art gallery would act as power socket: “If it’s in a gallery, you know it must be art right?” After three years of art history education the most definitive thing I can say about that is a very unsatisfying “Kind of?’. Getting your work in a gallery is much harder than a festival or exhibition. My point is, festivals are a safe space for the arts, and that is all they need for both to be taken seriously. This was my first time working as a professional artist in the sense of being payed as a part of the festival to just be an artist and have free reign from there, this is how its meant to be.
Painting is called a fine art, and like the word fine art has a meaning difficult to place.
She’s so fine!
I’m fine.
Fine.
Fin.
Fire like nature, is indifferent to human suffering. I doubt The Asteroid was not especially concerned with the dinosaurs. Most animals in nature die a slow and painful death. What goodness exists on this earth exists because the goodness inside us allows us to recognize the goodness in the world around us share it, as we cannot help but notice and discuss the negative too.
When I was painting this, around three in the morning, almost finished for the night, feeling cold, tired and very sore (around nine hours at this point) and I remember thinking:
“I’ve got some fine art for you right here you f**kers.”
The work had satisfied and drained me. Being social, being happy, having fun. There is a drain in these things still from a reservoir that requires solitude after a point. It feels like a performance, where I have sat around the edges of many performances and performed as myself as I would on any other day.
Tl/Dr:
Where are those ships from?
Where are the ships from, where are they going?
Where are the people in the forest going?
Where are the people in the forest from?
Is the sun rising or setting?
Isn’t spring a beautiful time of year?
Nature is reality, nature is the universe, nature is you.
I am grateful and happy. Thankyou universe, I love you too.
Even though we both have our bad days.
It nowhere near as hot as summer is going to be.
More lightning strikes, more droughts, more bush-fires; that is what I see in your future.
Spring has sprung.
