KALI

Original Available , Acrylic on canvas , enquire for price.

Giclee on Canvas ,  28 x 40 inch  £360. ( unstretched )

Archival print on fine quality paper , 38.5 x 55 cm  ( to fit A2 frame )   £ 145

Poster print A3 £ 38

A reflection on Kali , Hindu goddess , Divine Mother .   Kali means Kala or force of time, as she pierces the veil to emerge from the dark void, beyond mortality , birth & death .   She is fierce yet compassionate , the destroyer of evil , and cuts off the root identity of fear and wounding in the human ego , symbolized by the demon with the severed head , thus she is the great liberator, freeing us with divine knowledge to attain Moksha.  Pictured here in her 10 armed form as Mahakali , legend has it she was called into being by Durga to defeat demons in battle.  She then went so wild with bloodlust she couldn’t stop raging & , so the Gods called in her lover, Shiva, who lay beneath her peacefully to calm her down.  The sight of him , her love, pacified her ( in my depiction , which is not classical , she is piercing his heart open , but she is not killing him as he is in his spirit body )

The real story behind this piece is a strange & deep tale.

When painting her I was on a Pilgrimage with the CosmicTriggerPlay crew from Cern Abbas to CERN & Jungs Bolligen tower . A kind of magical prankster type happening , we were on a missive to “ Immanentize the Eschaton “ , the first words of the Illumanatus trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson . We were guided by dreams & synchronicitys , and went via the artistic community Damunhur in Italy to put on a play .   Later that year, the same crew , on November 23rd were involved in the JAMS latest project , Toxteth day of the Dead . ( i.e the KLF , the band that burned a million quid ) They are building a pyramid of bricks ,  each containing 23 grams of a cremated individual , in Toxteth , Liverpool .  https://www.mumufication.com

Synchronicitys led me upon my return to create my own ritual with the Liverpool Arts Lab who were hosting this event with the intention to release the soul of my Grandfather , and the 100 men who died in the historic Thetis submarine tragedy in Liverpool bay in 1939.  ( Thetis is the name of the Greek Goddess, mother of Achilles , who dipped her son in the River Styx to make him invulnerable to death , & at who’s wedding Eris threw the Golden apple. ). I based the ritual on Timothy Leary & Ram Dass’s book  ” The Psychedelic experience ” , guiding the souls through the Tibetan bardos ,& wove in the character Hagbard Celine , the renegade submarine captain from RAW’s books. We staged it at The Priory , the ruined church & memorial next to the shipyard .

  Just before we did it , I had an urge to turn the painting on its side …& realised what I had subliminally created . It looks like a man falling out of a submarine , & it also looks like the blue meanies in the Beatles Yellow submarine cartoon ! So the whole time , unknown to me , my subconscious was working on a painting about a ritual I would do in the future to release an ancestor from my past , which is a good example of the Surrealist technique of unconscious processing through Art .

As I finished the painting , Corona hit & lockdown ensued , and the painting took on a new meaning , as Kali seemed appropriate to the times we are in .   Is this the Kali Yuga ?