THIS BE A SACRED RITUAL

Intervention on a mail art envelope for the project "odd or weird looking animals" proposed by Heleen De Vaan from the Netherlands, accompanied by this text:

This be a sacred ritual

The Cobra and some of the outsider artists were inspired by how children draw and paint, so non-academic in essence. They invent their own world and techniques till education strikes back and tell them "to color within the lines" for instance.
As a kid I used crayons and I wondered if it was possible to paint with acrylic paints like drawing or stroking with crayons. First I used a coat of white on the paper and poured some rinsing water on that, so it became a canvas of different grayish tones. Then I put diluted other colors on that surface, with tiny strokes to have a crayon like effect. This resulted in a primitive animal drawing in a landscape. I let it draw for a day and then continued with some ink and water colors in similar tones as the acrylic ones. The effects and contrasts got milder, so I'll avoid that in a next work.

What was the purpose of the first cave paintings. Some see this as the beginning of art. Some see this as "decorating" the cave. Many see this as very functional and society related art.
The paintings were mainly on animals to be hunted to feed the cave community. So painting the animal was part of a hunting preparation? Try to catch the essence, the soul of the animal, so later you could catch the body? Something like that.

I'm not a hunter but I would like to catch my dreams, how I dreamt as a child? This for me is my sacred ritual.

The sun image is a bit of a joke and a tribute to the TV serial "Nurse Jacky".
Jacky and her husband are summoned to the school of their daughters. The youngest makes excellent technical drawings but there is no sun in her artwork, so the girl is labeled as problematic and should get medication and psychiatric treatment. This provokes a rebellion of nurse Jacky against these experts of the children's soul.
More and more we live in a society in the hands of experts.
They are the new inquisitors of the world…

Guido Vermeulen

PS
Beste Heleen,


De dieren van onze dromen hoeven geen dokters
Enkel woorden die de lenzen van grenzen genezen in de wind


Zij hoeven geen kooien, zij hoeven geen sloten
Enkel vleugels op rotsen en de hartkloppende stilte van jagers
Zij zijn zomaar tot wolken in water verdampt in gletsjers en bergen
& schuilen binnen de kamers van ziektedragers in de verbeelding
van wie wij waren als kind.


Guido
25/08/2010