USURPER I

As usual I'm stuck, as most artists probably are.

But being stuck is only a feeling, an illusion. You think you are stuck but your art moves on without you, it develops no matter what you do. Not just the art skill in your hand but also the art thought of your mind. It the job of the artist to guide that progress so that it somewhat matches what your self desires.

Because of that I often think about what I want to draw and where I want to guide my art - not just in terms of imagery but also in terms of feeling. Usurper is an exploration of rawness, humour, bad taste, good taste, eroticism, pornography, decadency, passion and style. (I could probably fit more adjectives in there but you understand). I draw more with feeling than with skill. The name Usurper itself is a reference to the last word of the first chapter of James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses (1922). A quote from Joyce himself that might explain something of what i also aim to do -

"The pity is . . . the public will demand and find a moral in my book—or worse they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it. ... In Ulysses I have recorded, simultaneously, what a man says, sees, thinks, and what such seeing, thinking, saying does, to what you Freudians call the subconscious."

Joyce's letters to his girlfriend are also insane and you should search them up if you get the chance. Sexuality and genius are not at odds and it is those in touch with their sexuality that are in touch with their true selves. These artists can lay bare their deepest feelings and desires and have the ability to express those succinctly.

Another quote that has inspired me recently from fashion designer Martin Margiela in 1998 -

*What is colour?*

An intensity, a temperature, a clash, a harmony.

*AND*

*How do you use it?*

When it asks.

What an amazing answer. How do I use line or text in my art? It simply asks for itself to be there.

As to where my art will go next? I think I have the answer, but it will take time and research. As I said before the art moves by itself, but it is our own task to mould that movement into something we are proud to show to others.

U.