In Chinese hocus-pocus this is supposed to be my year as I'm an earth Ox, having been born sixty years ago, and it's certainly worked out fabulous so far as, after much angst, I got my mother in a nursing home and I'm about to finish the grand novel I've been slaving over for seven years, The Seven Fucked-up Lives of the Punk Poofy Cat. Also I got an art exhibition, Vagabond World, in a back-alley of cyberspace with Soulprojector, and finally I learned how to drop photos into this Blog so from now on there will be illustrations, the Cat has landed on his hairy pink feet and is loving it.
I grew up in Melbourne but left that city when I was 21 and I never exhibited art there. When I flew back into Auz I chose Sydney to live in, it was 1977 and it seemed more cutting edge, which ended up meaning I got my throat cut. Within a few months I entered an anti-nuclear art show at the Opera House Gallery of all places and my painting of Lord Shiva with an atomic cloud exploding as He did his dance of destruction got a commendation from some guy raving about nuclear proliferation.
It was all down-hill from there I'm afraid as I only ever got exhibited in the Sydney underground, never invited to any galleries, openings, shows or soirees, kicked in the arse, stabbed in the back and ripped mercilessly by every wannabe I met in the climb up the pyramid of shit. Many of my works have ended up in "high culture" sites like the National Gallery in Canberra, the Powerhouse Museum and the Josef Lebovic Poster Gallery but most of it wasn't paid for, basically stolen from archives with me left to starve in the proverbial derelict garret.
Every dickhead wants the cachet of being "the artist" and make millions with prints of their butt-holes, it's a cunt of a proffession/life, you're dependant on wankers who work as curators for Govt. galleries to bestow the validation, otherwise you're finger-painting in the wilderness. But what the hell, now there's cyberspace and anyone can get their work up and out there, with no one at the door to bounce you, I pray. So from now on I will post old and new artworks and I hope, you, the unknown voyeur, will cogitate upon my radical, scurrilous visions. Enjoy!
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anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and
India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
