Monday, August 27, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Interview with the artist Angela Edwards
“...obviously my artwork is never going to be mainstream.”
It was Angela Edwards’ paintings that first seized
my attention; oddly reminiscent of David Larwill, Angela blends the old and the
new with a hearty dash of occult/voodoo influence with her figures spiralling
and tumbling off the canvas in a blur of colour. Like many artists she’s
intensely defensive about being misrepresented, particularly in regard to her
recent explorations into video-diary work and her Pomba Gira rituals. I start the interview by asking Angela for her view on the
purpose of art, both in an occult context and in the mundane world. She states
that she’s coming from both: “A lot of my stuff is about sexuality and death
and transgression through extremes and that comes from the fact that I was on
the street when I was younger; when I was 15 or 16. I experienced prostitution
and being around death and things that made me question life. Then I basically
started using it in ritualistic contexts with the magick and everything else.
Sort of refining it, those sorts of experiences that I’ve had; for example
sexuality, I experimented all those things while using it and pushing all those
boundaries but in a more controlled environment.” She’s energetic and enthusiastic
about her work but there is some delay on the phone-line and this creates some
awkward pauses, but we push on, nonetheless.
I’m interested to find out how you got into the art side of
things? “I’ve always painted and I’ve always written things and I’ve always
been interested in the occult as well because my dad used to do spirit contact
on Ouija boards and things so I’ve had that background as well, from an early
age. But then I basically ‘cleaned up’
and started picking up my art again and I’ve gradually developed my style and I
got more and more into stuff like Francis Bacon and Bertiaux and all the ones
that challenge your soul and sort of challenge the meaning of life; things that
actually mean something and make you feel something emotively. So I’ve gone
from starting to paint to more and more in that type of direction; the harder
stuff and using it in ritualistic context as well.” You mention ‘Exploring female psychosexuality, transgression
through ritualistic sexual violent extremes’ on your website; what do these
terms mean to you? “It’s kind of like the idea of crossing over gender and the
fact that women can be just as aggressive as males and also the fact that I’ve
used some experiences like rape or cutting as taking you through to a different
level; maybe through life and death and also connecting on a spiritual level to
all aspects of the soul, and kind of like a left hand path where you embrace
the dark and light – because I don’t really see any difference – and I sort of
embrace all aspects of the human condition; totally. All things; ugly or violent
are beautiful all at the same time so it’s an uncompromising path with both my
art and my life...to a certain extent.” Angela draws parallels between the artist, the witch and the
prostitute: “The untamed path of the Witch and Artist often runs parallel to
the path of the prostitute. All are outcasts... all are the act of giving the
soul over in destruction of the self. The prostitute, like the witch/artist,
transgresses all profane moralistic boundaries of society. Living outside of
class and convention alone they are separate from the civilised mind, dwelling
in the void of full expressed enlightenment. In sex, like spirituality, we are
consistently reminded of our own mortality, fragility; and where in lays the
act of procreation, life, the start, there also lays the reminder of death, the
end.” This isn’t just artistic or philosophical theory; Angela is currently
prostituting herself in both a scared sense and also to raise funds to further
her art – she’s open to most offers
(though not paedophilia, bestiality or necrophilia).
You’re inspired by voodoo and Quimbanda, a quite obscure
system, what led you here? “I’m into voodoo quite a lot; I’ve been looking at
certain things, I’ve been merging it with western stuff - I’ve looked at
Bertiaux’s stuff but that’s not very grounded
so sort of the sexuality and death aspect, the fact that there are dead
street spirits and a lot of things like that come from spiritualist connections
with it. And with the Quimbanda; you’ve got the Pomba Gira and you’ve got the
kind of spirits that I can relate to from the streets that are dead and it’s
for sacred female sexuality as well, in a lot of aspects. I do actually go for
a more post-modernist take on it than traditional in my art. I don’t actually
pretend that my art is actually Quimbanda; it’s actually voodoo totally and
straight down the line...so it’s kind of a cross between post-modernism and
Quimbanda rather than straight Quimbanda.” Is it not difficult to reconcile two vastly differing
systems; eg - Post-modernism in a western context and Quimbanda? “Well, that’s
my art. If I’m actually talking about practising, I practise traditionally at
home. I do the traditional things and use the traditional herbs and that, and I
have friends like Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold , who wrote the foreword for this
book that I’ve written, and I have the traditional elements that I use in my
day to day practise but [with] the artistic thing, I sort of merged them both together
but that’s like what anyone does, I mean Marina Abramovic, any good artist
mixes the two together, they don’t stay
to a traditional concept, because that’s how you make it interesting, that’s
how you make it in the current world.” So what drew you to Quimbanda? “Just basically being drawn
to the aspects of the street spirits and the fact that a lot of the spirits in
Quimbanda are related to the streets, which is where I’m from, and basically
the Pomba Gira aspect of it but in a more raw, real, human aspect of it rather
than the Babalon [current?] which is a bit sort of more, could I say elevated?
It’s more low in a sort of a way, the Pomba Gira, it’s kind of more human than
the essence of the Babalon that’s sort of...I don’t know...it’s a spirit
archetype rather than human, it reflects the human condition in a lot of ways,
or humanity to a large extent.”
My knowledge of the Pomba Gira is very limited, though I do
know there are several different aspects; is there a particular aspect that
you’re invoking? “I was doing a ritual for each one, and even though I’ve only
roughly filmed things at the moment, I’m doing paintings but basically I’m
doing an invocation and ritual specifically for each one, and it takes elements
that you use traditionally with each one...”
How many are there? “I’ve
probably done about 20 so far; I don’t know how many more I’m going to do; each
one’s different specifically I’ve used different things for each one, but
you’ve got to understand when I do stuff, it’s like my voodoo book that I
wrote, I’m using it in a more post-modernist way and linking it into art and
the human condition and ritual transgression rather than traditional Quimbanda,
word for word? I mean the feminist aspects of it as well...it’s using elements
of modern takes on prostitution and modern things and my own relationship to
it; it can’t be like when you see someone like Barry Hale that does the
traditional symbols for it, even though I use the traditional pontos of the
Pomba Gira, I cut the traditional ponto of the Pomba Gira with a razor in my
stomach, things like that, the majority of it is quite a post-modernist take on
it rather than traditional, in the art.”
I’ve seen some of your video-work; I guess some people would
find it quite confronting – the cutting aspect and the insertion of roses into
your vagina for instance - what do you aim to achieve through
transgression/annihilation of the lower self? “Basically it’s annihilation of
the ego; I always like to sort of annihilate the ego to nothing, or annihilate
the spirit and just sort of break through to a higher gnosis or a higher humble
sentiment or meaning of the universe and everything and embrace everything and
feel everything, which is like the path of the sadhu and all these things. That’s
what people do, they sort of break things down to a higher spiritual awareness
and martyr themselves of the ego ...”
And what’s the mainsteam art establishment’s reaction been? “The
ritual work, people don’t really understand ...some people understand what I’m
doing it for, and other people are like ‘Do you do it to shock?’ but it’s not
to shock; it’s actually because I fell it goes perfectly with my art work and
my practices in occultism and things, and what I believe in. There are other
people who have been really supportive and interested in it but obviously my
artwork is never going to be mainstream.”
And what about the occult world? “In the general, run of the
mill type things, people don’t really like it to start with; the occult world
has been quite ‘ergh’ towards it because it’s very male dominated and very post
modern/Victorian values, which it shouldn’t be...you know, quite conservative
in a lot of ways. I find the occult people, even though they’re meant to be,
all these things – even Crowley – the left hand path and all these things that
I’m doing or embracing do actual fit into that tradition and ritual and all the
transgression, all these things, I find them very conservative. There are male
artists and male writers out there in the occult world and I’m breaking out
into that world as well with my writing and my art work but they don’t have any
strong female women, except for Wiccans half the time, and they more appreciate
some sort of stereo-typical drawing of a big booby Babalon, that’s about it,
rather than the actual, real female perspective or any real rawness on that
scene. I’ve found they’ve less embraced [the work] probably more than the art
world. I’ve found I’ve only had a few supporters on the occult scene, I’ve
found a few occult people have been a bit, sort of quite threatened or
intimidated by it.”
I try to probe Angela’s perception of herself; how does she
see the mundane personality being superceded by the manifestation of the
divine, but it gets a tad lost in translation, and she appears to think I’m
having a pop at her. “I’m actually very level-headed. People ask me, because
I’m doing these cutting rituals, am I into self-harming or am I depressed or
something. And no, it’s not about that. I was using ritualistic context. I can
do a ritual like that or film something or paint what I paint and embrace those
things and still be sort of level-headed and normal – not normal but it’s
not...I don’t have any issues or problems in any way shape or form. I’m not an
unhappy person or doing it because I’m depressed or anything; it’s just a part
of who I am, like people like Francis Bacon and all those people they embrace
that side of life and push the boundaries and that’s just what I feel you have
to do as an artist.”
Do you think that you’ll continue with the cutting or
eventually transcend them? “I’m not doing it all the time; I am going to be
doing other types of rituals. My friend suggested that I did a certain type of
ritual; I’m not just doing it to shock or just for the sake of it. It has to
specifically to a Pomba Gira, like when I drew the seven crosses in my body and
then wrote an invocation – there has to be a reason why I’m doing it. I’m not interested
in just like showing how hard I am or something by cutting myself or doing it
for the sake of it. There’s going to have to be a reason to do it so it just depends
on whether it calls for it or not. It’s not something I would do just for the
sake of it. But then again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it; to be
honest, in a lot of Magick, and a lot of occult practices, blood ritual is part
of it, quite a big part of it, in general. Even in Quimbanda, you get initiated
in traditional Quimbanda, you get cut to let spirits in [or out, I suggest].
Cutting and blood ritual have been a long tradition in a lot of traditions, not
for sensationalist value but the cutting of symbols, sigils in the flesh,
letting the spirits in, it’s a long tradition, a magickal tradition.”
You’ve had some issues with servers removing the videos, and
you mentioned about possibly putting the clips on YouPorn to get around this
problem; do you have any concerns about the loss of control of images? “But
it’s different with performance art and film art, to my mind, because even
though I don’t really expect the film to go anywhere really – it’s just a
private diary – I’ve only just learnt how to cut film – it’s not really private
but it’s like a film grimoire – but it’s not meant to be a Hollywood thing or
make lots of money. To be honest, I’m not really worried about people using
that image or using those things because it’s like performance art, it’s kind
of like ‘for the moment’ rather than a painting that you’re selling and it’s
there.”
But once filmed, it’s no longer ‘in the moment’; it becomes
a recording of a moment...“I’ve not really thought about it...it keeps getting
taken off Youtube at the moment (laughs)...it keeps getting banned off Youtube
anyway but to be honest, my painting is my main work...this is an interesting
thing that I’m doing at the moment and it is part of my work but it’s not the
main thing, my painting is the thing that I’m actually talented at. I don’t
actually pretend to be a film maker, this is more like a Tracey Emin type
visual diary or something to go along with the paintings; you know -something
that I’m doing for myself...I don’t see the other (video) thing as a
distraction, that’s just something that I’m exploring, another side of
something that I feel like doing at the moment. I’m definitely not stopping
doing my painting or my writing, my painting is probably the essence of what
I’m talented at because I’ve worked like six years perfecting my painting –
I’ve only been doing this film thing as a thing of interest for two
months...it’s just an interesting idea, really, a small thing and an
interesting experiment really...”
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Pop Smellers and the Spine of the Earth - Part 4
“I woke up today and something was
wrong. I knew this from the moment that
I opened my eyes. Perhaps even
before. I think that ‘wrong’ is the
wrong word to use, but what else could I say?
That it was incorrect?
Askew? Different?
Yes. I woke up today and it was different. I don’t know what was different, maybe me,
maybe the room, or possibly my bed, perhaps even the entire world. I couldn’t be sure though; it was too early
in the day to leap to conclusions; at least not while I was still in bed. I got up at this point, and that’s when it
struck me; cold and hard, rather like a fish with a claw hammer…I realised that
the world as I had previously perceived it was no longer valid, no longer
solid…no longer real. I had awoken and
was no longer absorbed in this supposedly ‘real’ sphere; I could indulge no
more in petty emotional or intellectual games; I could not even trick myself
with the idea of the material world. I
could quite easily see my dressing table in the corner of the bedroom but it
shone with an intensity that I had previously been unaware of, and yet in the
same instant of seeing the full glory within this piece of wooden furniture, I
was also able to see through its alleged ‘realness’ (though how a dressing
table could allege its own existence, I could not grasp).”
The pit of my
stomach had fallen like an elevator down a shaft. My mouth was dry like a camels’
bum-hole. I seemed to throb all over. I finished my pint and hurried to the bar to
get another drink. I was shaking and
disjointed. I ordered a brandy, paid for
it and returned to my table and continued to read. What the fuck was wrong with
me?
“It was, in
essence, the sum of our entire existence, yet it was all trickery and illusion. For all these years I had been duped by an
inanimate object. The rage flared inside
me. I wanted to hurt the dresser, as it
had hurt me. I wanted to destroy it for
humiliating me for so long; and I wasn’t even aware of it! It made me sick. It was typical of that kind of furniture,
perceiving itself to be superior, with its fine varnish and wonderful burnished
walnut grain. The harsh, grinding humour
of the dresser burrowed deep into my psyche.
It was just too degrading.
My anger was
suddenly replaced by a profound sense of grief and sadness. I began to weep. It was just so unfair! I had done nothing to deserve such torment. Especially from a piece of mere
carpentry. Oh, the injustice of it
all! Then came the terror; a sweeping
sensation that tore through the core of my very being; leaving my body empty
and shaking.”
I knew where
this cat was at. I too had been mocked
by furniture on several occasions. It
was one of the reasons why I avoided those furniture superstores that are
always advertising on the telly. I drank
a deep draught of the brandy, feeling its warmth spread through my belly. I looked around, noticing that the bar had
become crowded, and that a noisy chatter filled the air, smoke wafted around
me, and I realised that I hadn’t had a cigarette for some time. I drew one from
the packet and rummaged about in my coat for a light. I found an old box of
matches and struck one, inhaling deep and settling back into my chair. The
brandy was doing its work and the cigarette was fine. I noticed it was dark
outside and realised that I should be getting home to Audrey. My loins stirred
instantly, and for a brief moment I was awash with pornographic images of
myself and wifey. But I pushed them aside so that I might finish this
extraordinary communication from Zagley. I read on. “Devoid of reason; I had
been on the verge of destroying an innocent dresser, it had been a gift from my
mother too. What was happening to me? It seemed as if I had no concept of
anything – or rather; no thing – no ability to distinguish between good
furniture and bad.
But it didn’t
seem to matter because the way I felt was once again changing, the fear dropped
away and was replaced by the most uplifting and invigorating feelings. They
pulsed. They flowed. They cascaded through the very core of my being. I was
totally joyous, I was enlightened, and this I deduced, was due to the sight
that I beheld. It was the sight of my carpet.
Wondrous swirls
and whorls of colour, all manner of hues, tones and- did my senses deceive me? Were
there not tastes and flavours within my carpet? I could taste the beauty, I
could see the many flavours that my carpet gave off. Rich reds merged with
stunning blues, golds and silvers throbbed and spun, throwing up the most
bizarre yet delicious flavours. Somehow it was all too much, too erotic, and I
began to masturbate.
I was pulling on
myself, touching, tugging, I was being swept upwards on an erotic carpet of
colour that was beyond all description. I could feel my approaching orgasm; a
tightening in my stomach and a surge from the very core of my being. My mouth
was being stimulated by the vast array of tastes thrown off by the carpet, my
eyes drunk from the constantly charging warp and weft. I was on the edge, the
cliff top, the very moment before spilling my seed. But that all ceased
immediately when I caught a movement from the corner of the room and realised
that I was not alone.
I turned around
and found myself face to face with the most insane looking thing that I had
ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon. Coupled with the fact that I still
held my now rapidly wilting penis in my hand, it was not a good moment. In
fact, I would go as far as to say the situation was very bad indeed. The
creature before me was obviously human, or at the very least sub-human; it was
hunched over and its hair was bedraggled, its eyes were wild black holes,
staring into me. I was filled with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion. As I
put my cock awkwardly back into my pants, I realised that oddly enough the monstrosity
also had what I presumed to be its penis out and it too was attempting to stuff
it away. It was at this point that it dawned on me that I had merely been
observing myself in the full length mirror on my wardrobe door. Another piece
of sly furniture behaviour, and to think that i had been curious yet revolted
by myself! Oh! The degradation! The humiliation! It was too much. Why was this
happening to me? But it was too late, I had already begun the descent into
tortuous self-reflection, despite having no mind with which to process the
analysis of ‘me’. No mind.
No mind! That
was it! This was the reason for my strange sensations, the reason why I leapt
from one feeling to the next without rest. I had no mind and therefore could no
longer be real. I did not exist. It was all trickery and illusion. But how
could I grasp not the concept of having no mind without actually having one? I
didn’t want to think about that. I went out into the street in a vain attempt
to be real. A bad mistake.”
I stopped reading
for a moment. I too, was assailed by a strange sensation. My brandy was gone
and I needed another drink but my legs felt like jelly. I braced myself and got
to the bar without collapsing in a blubbery heap. I bought a pint of lager and
managed the return journey to the table. Gulping half the pint down
immediately, I paused briefly to light another cigarette with shaking hands.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I looked at the stack of papers on the table.
There were a couple of pages left before I’d finished this ‘letter’. I pushed
on. “If nothing was real in my room, everything outside was even less real. If
that’s possible. The pavement buckled and rippled like a grey ocean – I had to
concentrate with all my will power just to stay upright – yet all around me
people were going about their business as if nothing was wrong. The very sky
was drawn to a single point as if it were a vast billowing sail suspended by an
unseen hand, and all around me buildings towered upward, leaning at such
obscene angles that I could not understand why they did not come crashing down
upon me. And the noise! It whirred and hummed and shrieked like monstrous gears
grinding together; crunching, static like. It was driving me insane.
Perhaps this was
what had happened to me? I had awoken this morning and had become completely
mad? Surely it was the only possible explanation? I was once again gripped by a
dreadful sense of unease, the feelings of utmost terror overwhelmed me, coupled
with the noise; I fell to me knees, covering my ears with my hands and shutting
my eyes tight against the world, drifting into a black void that was once my
mind.
Drifting
backwards.
Back.
Blackness.
Silence.
Black.
Nothing.
Silence. The
original state.
Indeed! That was
a strange one. To perceive oneself as mad! What contradiction! What folly! But
what now? To experience great joy? To suffer? But what? For what? For all is
transitory. No thing is real for me for all is real to me. Just to see, just to
be, for a day, a lifetime, to be someone else, something else.
Perhaps tomorrow
I will be a clock. Or a hamburger.
Anything to
break up the monotony of absolute divinity.
God, I hate
being God.
It’s so boring.
And man thinks
he’s got it bad...as the alleged ‘Supreme Being’, the one and only ultimate
deity (HA!), I am alone. Who can I pray to? I get bored and that’s why I
invented man. A bit of amusement. I get
to experience myself subjectively, see the world through the eyes of others.
But it always
comes back to zero. Back here again.
You can only
trick yourself for so long.
So here I am
again.”
I sat back in
the chair, everything in the pub seemed ultra-loud, ultra-garish. The music
pounded and the people laughed but beneath it all I perceived a very deep fear
and an even deeper sadness. I had to get out. I went home to Audrey.
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