Art that really SHOCKED me

Before i found out about Amy Winehouse's tragic death on Saturday what I really wanted to write about was what shocked me face to face. There is a lot of art  out there that is supposedly meant to shock. Most of it, in reality, might be amazing art, might be art that I love, but it doesn't shock! Sex is exciting not shocking. Swearing just a part of the every day human language. Religion discussed.... Politics obvious! I must admit, even a water boarding  (torture technique) performance installation at the recent Goldsmiths showcase didn't shock me. It was too obvious, too tacky. What really shocks me is when I feel. When I feel disgusted, uneasy, shocked...at god knows what. When art is the unexpected.
  On saturday I walked in to the White Cube on Hoxton Square for the "Jake or Dinos Chapman" exhibition. A show put on in both White Cube's (I haven't been to Mason's Yard yet - but can't wait) in which the tow brothers have both made art separately from one another for one another but we don't know whose is who. Anyway I walked in and it was busy. There were some interesting paintings on the wall and some intricate sculptures. They didn't really mean anything to me. A mix of contemporary and african art by the looks of it. Fairly fun ... and then I noticed this group of school children at the end of the room. I thought to myself "Odd place for a school trip (they were very small looking - so i assumed must be young) especially on a saturday." And then in struck me. they were all ever so perculiar. Ever so still. Ever so intimidating. They weren't real!
  This made me feel incredibly uneasy. I don't know why. I couldn't stop staring and I hadn't even seen there fronts yet. I walked round and here it becomes obvious they aren't real but there is certainly some sort of life in them. They are a presence. A very REAL presence. I wont tell you about there faces. They aren't normal faces. But you have to go and see. It is the feeling that shocks. It is not the Nazi content or the distortion but just the fact they are there. Quite frankly I can't get over it. The press release has it just right "It is the attack on the body". The body of everyone.

It isn't there in the picture

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to corollate all its contents"

    Dinos Chapman from the book "Nothing they Teach us"

Violet eyes

What closed hearts we have.
Who truly understands themselves and tells how they truly are?
To say I feel
Or to act the way they know?
To see your tears -
The one who knows my little limbs and shone into those violet eyes.
Violet eyes - first sight was you.
To say I know you!
But to know the world...
Give it all to you in an instant,
You gave it to me.
Please stop and see
Your good heart.
My breathe would not exist without your blood
Yet your heart set fire to my mind.
Remember painting the sky?
The wind can save you.
Time for us three.

Decapitation

To be mindless
           JUST BODY
xx

Phoenix

My brains are burning in the desert
My skin blistering, grating, bloody grin.
My mind is boiling and broiling twisted in the midday sun.
Lying in a coma; paralyses from my heart.
The slow way to die...
Can't end in twisted cries.
Maybe if I burn the outside off i will find the inside again.
You lost my mind.
Whimpering little girl. She shouldn't be in the heat. But this will dry up the tears.
Sweat out the weakness. Soak up the pathetic snivels. Be cool again.
Red
Raw
Ruin
My bleeding head will be cured this way.
Drain it dry.
Crack the skin and be born again.
Phoenix

The Eye

From day to day

Looking

Looking

Looking

Open and see

Disconnect from the body and keep

                             the secret locked inside.

Open and shut

Open and shut

Open and shut

What the glass sees it must hold.

Flashing glimpses 

Hazy murmurs of sin.

White light.

White stark light.

The eye is running being chased by storms or searching for those within rain.

Searching for life?

Don't turn it off

Don't turn it off.

This secret can't be missed.

Precious memories through bloody gauze.

Disconnected eye.

Jewel of separation.

Camera catches what you don't know.

I didn't see

See and act.

Mirror

Mirror 

Mirror

Cracked glass

                         Hedonistic glare

I can't see 

                it anymore

Right or 

Wrong.

Just experience.

Lustful landscape of life?

HA HA YOU MAKE ME LAUGH

Do I ignore the facts and take it in behind the mask…

This obscurity that I don't understand.

Glimpse

              Hidden Glimpse

Eyelash

Skin

Gory scarred skin.

The Eye

Don't shut it

Don't shut it

Don't make me shut out the light.

Mad Girl's Love Song

Mad Girl's Love Song 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; 
I lift my lids and all is born again. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, 
And arbitrary blackness gallops in: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed 
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: 
Exit seraphim and Satan's men: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said, 
But I grow old and I forget your name. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; 
At least when spring comes they roar back again. 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.)" 
— Sylvia Plath

Control

Grey day
Grey mind
Grey space
Grey light
Grey heart
Grey sight...
Absolution in the still soliliquey of solitude
Wasted words in a wasted world
Moments in time tortured by burning bitter fantasy,
Blasphemy on life ...

Light lost

Love losing

Lauhter left listlessly lamenting language
Madness twisting reality into a few pathetic moments
Not worth the time spent
Or the feeling.
Lack of memory mocking a mind that knows
THIS IS NOT RIGHT!
Not me
Not I
Not it
Not life.

What does one want?
Not this
But what?

NOT THIS

Light
colour
freedom ... but freedom to dance in completion.
Do do what is
what should be.

MESS MESS MESS fucking MESS
Knotted actions lost in lack of control.
Control spun into girating glee at the absence of caring.
But I do care
I do care
I DO CARE

Free me control
free me

disease

I don't know quite how to start or what to say, how to express how I feel or what I feel... I am not entirely sure.
Another life cut short, another beauty always remembered, another wonderful girl taken by an evil illness.
Mental illness is little unerstood and even more misunderstood.
I spent alot of my early teens trapped in a world I didn't understand, caught in the grip of what can be broadley described as anerexia. I never feel this title can quite be defined and what it means is not definitive, all I know is it is sadness. I spent a good two years in impatient hospital living in what I percieved to be hell being controlled and manipulated by firstly my thoughts and then the people around me "helping me". There were times when I didn't want to go on... everything that mattered to me it seemed was being taken away... I wanted to be nothing... I was made to be something.. but something I didn't want to be and then nothing again.... not me!
As humans we are surronded by slogans and articles in the media about weight and beauty that sadly lead anerexia to seem shallow or a life choice. Celebrities are branded anerexic for being thin when really this has little to do with it... they are not commiting suicide .. fr them it is life.
It is deadly cycle hard to escape .. living a life of starvation and depression, fighting a system, two mids, one hated body.. it can seem there is little else important than that... no world beyond anerexia, death and hospital.
This is not about my story or what is right or wrong however it is a thank you a relfection on how lucky I am. I saw m life, I saw what I wanted, I fought and I fight and continue fighting. I love my life... I chose to live each day battlng my thouhts, learning to accept, to love food, trying to loose obsessions but I can see I can see how easily this could not have been how strong the illness is, how deceptive and how hard everything is to believe.
This i a rememberence to all I knew who have sadly passed away to anerexia and depression. How I dream they are set free and a wish to all those I don't know and all who are still suffering.
Much love
Effy
xxx

haunted

I truly believe

My life is flled with so many ghosts..

ghost (gst)
n.
1. The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats.
2. The center of spiritual life; the soul.
3. A demon or spirit.
4. A returning or haunting memory or image.
5.
a. A slight or faint trace: just a ghost of a smile.
b. The tiniest bit: not a ghost of a chance.
6. A faint, false image, as:
a. A secondary image on a television or radar screen caused by reflected waves.
b. A displaced image in a photograph caused by the optical system of the camera.
c. A false spectral line caused by imperfections in the diffraction grating.
d. A displaced image in a mirror caused by reflection from the front of the glass.
7. Informal A ghostwriter.
8.
a. A nonexistent publication listed in bibliographies.
b. A fictitious employee or business.
9. Physiology A red blood cell having no hemoglobin.
v. ghost·ed, ghost·ing, ghosts
v.intr.
1. Informal To engage in ghostwriting.
2. To move noiselessly like a ghost: "Two young deer ghosted out of the woods" (Nancy M. Debevoise).
v.tr.
1. To haunt.
2. Informal To ghostwrite: was hired to ghost the memoirs of a famous executive.

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[Middle English gost, from Old English gst, breath, spirit.]

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ghosty adj.

recurring dreams

My sister is plagued by a dream. She has it every night. She can't sleep for fear.
Every night she dreams of a lady, he is an artist. It is very clear. She finds a book it is full of paintings, painings of mutilated bodyparts. The lady paints them. She is a murderer. This is horrible. Why is my sister's mind doing this to her? She has done nothing wrong. This is not fair.
The subconscious is crazy. I think about ti so much.. Who are we really underneath?
I want to make it better but I have to understand.
Aren't dreams menat to be a warning?

I only ever had one recurring dream... it was about wolves. I like having nightmares because they are exciting. But this is horrible. My dreams only recurr in themes.

Oceans

I think water is incredible. Its power overwhelms me. Its diversity. It fills me with a feeling of awe and wonder. It makes me feel peaceful. It seems so wise. My favourite times are summer times by a sea or lake... look out across the water.. here it, feel it.. sense it. It has a voice a personality. Water has seen so much and it all has been part of one big moving body: oceans, rivers, rain clouds, inside trees..inside us. It is life. Water is alive. It is a mystery that has fascinated me for years. As a child I had a stron dgesire to find out the secret of water. Realistically now I know I am no great scientist and probably never will be but in a way now i don't want to know its inner truth. I see it as a conscious being, delving into it's mind may be way too dangerous. How can we as mere humans expect to understand something so great and so all powerfull. Something with the ability to shape and create anything... or destroy everthing. What makes water angry or suddenly turn? What makes water make us feel? What makes water starve or nourish... It has to be a mind! Not like ours, but a great mind. The soul of water; the basis to the universe.



WATER
by Keith Tyson
"Nature's better at painting than I am"

conscience

Does the mind rule the body or the body rule the mind?


I think they are insperable. The mind is the body. Pain is always physical whatever the cause. We love becuse of physical things and yet we do things that feel.
I can be won ovr by physical things, yet, I always no what I should be doing... I chose to ignore it. When one is ill the other one doesn't work.

Without a body you can't have a mind and without a mind ou can't have a body. Who even knows what these two things are. We are just beings. We aren't seperated. Sante is both.
But sometimes it is head or heart...
Do we have to decide?