Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair

No, I'm not arrogantly presenting my work. It's ironic... It's a quote from Shelley's Ozymandias. It's about the folly of thinking that what we create is going to last forever. Anicca, anicca. Anyway, here are some more works of mine that no longer exist. Some had to be destroyed for space, others because they were temporary installations.

If you needed any more reminders of your own mortality, here's a photo from primary school, age about 11? This person no longer exists, and is as good as dead. See Barthes' Camera Lucida. Just as we all die, so must our art.


This was a piece I made for the Furr show at Kudos, another great show curated by Penelope Benton. I think it was called Tiny Teddies. It's a giant Tiny Teddy made out of Tiny Teddies. Penelope liked the idea and thought two of them would look great. I dutifully made two, but regretted the decision when it came time to dismantle the work. The teddies had been glued directly to the gallery wall and proved rather difficult to dislodge! It smelled great, though!


This is a work that may have been destroyed. I made it for Guy Moscoso, a colleague from my Japan days. I had a party for about 5 or 6 people who all had birthdays in the same month, and made presents for all the birthday people. It was a quick work, a complete rip-off of Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs. I think the black and white backgrounds were painted panels. The shoes are real shoes.




This one I know was destroyed because a friend told me he saw it in the garbage after the person I gave it to moved out of her apartment! This was when I lived in Japan, so it probably wasn't feasible for her to transport it back to America, but still... It was one of a trio of works that I had made for Paisley McMahon. I think this one was called The Father (the others were The Son, and The Holy Spirit). I had even had a little party for her. I was far more sociable and generous in those days. I've since learned that it gets you no where...




This was another work that was directly affixed to a wall. It's small origami squares, scrunched up and unfolded. The folds and creases catch the light and create a more interesting texture than just a flat piece of paper. It was called something like A Pleasing Arrangement of Shapes and Colours Designed to Entertain and Distract in These Troubled Times. It was my comment on pretty-but-vacuous art. It was about 1.5m wide and about 2.5 m high. I have larger images that show the whole thing, but not handy. One day I'll get around to digitizing them.


Ditto this work. It was a 2m-high, and 3m-wide screen covered in layers of balloons, some of which were already deflating. It was a riot of colour, but I only have these two details here. It was called The Way of All Flesh. Both of these works were from the same year at uni when I was studying Fine Arts, majoring in Sculpture, Performance and Installation. I think it was my 3rd year (graduation) show.



Some of these chopstick works have been shown here before. I think this was the Sculpture 2003 show at PCL Gallery. The first work from the left has been remade into something new. The second work is in a friend's collection. The large work with the light globes is in my collection. It's called Hanoi Hilton II. There was a larger piece that was Hanoi Hilton which is in the COFA Arc collection. That work had only one light globe. It reminded me of the scene in the Deer Hunter where the prisoner is in a cage in the water, and is brought up occasionally to be tortured. That may not have been at the real Hanoi Hilton, but I liked the name and the associations.


This is the work that has been destroyed. I can't remember what it was called now. Something about being caged by society probably. The chopsticks have been recycled into other work, but the figures have all been destroyed. They were made of wire cores, covered in papier mache, then burnt, and finished with shellac to seal them. They're on a small square of sand. An earlier version had involved a larger number of figures on a wide circle of sand and no cage, kind of like Rodin's The Burghers of Calais.



These three works weren't even really finished pieces. I think I made them in a drawing class. They're pastel and oil stick and crayon and coloured pencil. I rarely make colourful work, so I kind of liked these. I guess these fit the pretty-but-vacuous school of art. There's no meaning behind them, no exploration of any themes, no art-historical references...




This was another work from Japan days. It originally had a wax head of the Venus de Milo at the top, but only melted wax remains in this image. I guess it was some vaguely sado-masochistic theme much favoured at the time! I don't think it rated a title.