{"id":4691,"date":"2011-09-21T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/"},"modified":"2024-02-01T17:32:19","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T17:32:19","slug":"im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-4691 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/attachment\/4692\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao1_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao1_1280-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao1_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/attachment\/4693\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao2_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao2_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao2_1280-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao2_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/attachment\/4694\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao3_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao3_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao3_1280-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao3_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/attachment\/4695\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-400x399.jpg 400w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280-768x766.jpg 768w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/tumblr_lrvoj7QFT51qcztaao4_1280.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>I&rsquo;m digging up bodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I have a couple of large-scale landscape-based paintings that I&rsquo;ve been working on, off and on, for months now. But these weird figurative elements keep popping up. At first I thought it was force of habit &#8211; a pointy rock looked like a knee or an elbow only because I&rsquo;m accustomed to drawing people. Then I thought it was happening because I missed drawing people; moss and leaves are boooring. Then I fished several different paintings out of the pile and propped them up around the studio and realised these references to the body are <em>everywhere<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There&rsquo;s things that look like teeth and toenails and blood and knees and bones all over the place. Organs at an autopsy, slick and discoloured. Cracks in a cliff-face look like thighs or cleavage and a feathery, rosy red the colour of mouths and and fingertips seeps from crevices. It might sound really stupid that I didn&rsquo;t notice I was doing this, but there it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I have a new theory. I&rsquo;m wondering if these paintings are really an expression of wanting to be able to relate to something beyond my own body. I sometimes wish I could be objective. I wish I could get out of this skin and all its attendant inconveniences I just don&rsquo;t want to deal with at the moment &#8211; gender, sexuality, deficiency, clumsiness. I don&rsquo;t want to worry about how my own identity affects the work, or how the work is read by others. I don&rsquo;t want to have to stop painting just because I&rsquo;m hungry or my joints hurt from crouching. I don&rsquo;t want to have to drop everything and go find medical supplies because I&rsquo;m so amazingly clumsy I managed to stab myself in the leg with a Stanley knife and my thigh popped open like a burst zipper.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if I didn&rsquo;t have a body, I couldn&rsquo;t paint and wouldn&rsquo;t be interested in painting. I&rsquo;d be some abstract entity of pure energy, like a rubbish Star Trek special effect, with even less manual dexterity than I have now. But bodies keep encroaching on the canvas in the same way my own body keeps encroaching on my experience of the world. Cramping my style.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But it&rsquo;s alright.<\/p>\n<p>Photos are details from three different paintings, all oil on canvas.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;m digging up bodies.\u00a0 I have a couple of large-scale landscape-based paintings that I&rsquo;ve been working on, off and on, for months now. But these weird figurative elements keep popping up. At first I thought it was force of habit &#8211; a pointy rock looked like a knee or an elbow only because I&rsquo;m accustomed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/21\/im-digging-up-bodies-i-have-a-couple-of\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[505,72,118,156,42],"class_list":["post-4691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-concept","tag-figure","tag-landscape","tag-oil","tag-painting","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4696,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}