{"id":4804,"date":"2011-04-04T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T13:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/04\/my-fixation-on-explorers-may-be-wearing-off\/"},"modified":"2024-02-01T17:56:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T17:56:05","slug":"my-fixation-on-explorers-may-be-wearing-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/04\/my-fixation-on-explorers-may-be-wearing-off\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-4804 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/04\/my-fixation-on-explorers-may-be-wearing-off\/attachment\/4805\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/tumblr_lj4qtwoLj81qcztaao1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/tumblr_lj4qtwoLj81qcztaao1_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/tumblr_lj4qtwoLj81qcztaao1_1280-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/tumblr_lj4qtwoLj81qcztaao1_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 85vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>My fixation on explorers may be wearing off. Still, this began as a fairly detailed portrait of a young Ernest Shackleton. But I&rsquo;m really not comfortable with portraits &#8211; it feels rude, like staring directly into a stranger&rsquo;s eyes for far too long. So I suppose I started pushing him back, under layers of hectic colour, til his face was almost completely abstracted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Acrylic on canvas, 16&quot;x20&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>My love of explorers isn&rsquo;t completely pure; it&rsquo;s not a sincere admiration of their achievements. It&rsquo;s really a fascination with the contrast between their near-superhuman accomplishments and their painfully ordinary weaknesses. Like Shackleton: hailed as an heroic leader for keeping his team going in horrible circumstances, but chose men to join his polar expeditions on the basis that he &lsquo;liked the look of them&rsquo; rather than their technical skills. Set various records and was awarded a knighthood for his explorations, but was obsessed with money and attempted many unsuccessful business schemes, including a run of collectible Antarctic-themed postage stamps. Had a serious heart condition but repeatedly refused treatment, even getting into an argument with his doctor about changing his lifestyle minutes before suffering a fatal heart attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My fixation on explorers may be wearing off. Still, this began as a fairly detailed portrait of a young Ernest Shackleton. But I&rsquo;m really not comfortable with portraits &#8211; it feels rude, like staring directly into a stranger&rsquo;s eyes for far too long. So I suppose I started pushing him back, under layers of hectic &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/04\/my-fixation-on-explorers-may-be-wearing-off\/\" 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":[108,53,507,40,42,130],"class_list":["post-4804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-abstract","tag-acrylic","tag-head","tag-head-study","tag-painting","tag-portrait","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804","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=4804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4806,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804\/revisions\/4806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}