Queer Eye for the Surf Guy and Sale of Bondi Calling

There is a Surfer  in every Australian – an inward feeling to match the expansiveness of that magic view, a wanting to be desirable and to desire, a longing for that elemental passion of bodies sun surf and sand

This week iI sold a key image from my 2011 exhibition that applies the perspectives of a gay neo catholic Melbourne artist to the cultural phenomena that is Bondi using carefully staged studio based photography, exploring and deconstructing the Bondi myth through representations of the male body. I apply  the  “queer eye to the surf guy” to expand the limits of the myth and its relevance to contemporary art.

The work is not a realistic representation of actual surfers but a symbolic evocation of the components of the surf lifestyle – the elements of beachwear, the surfboard and its accoutrement and the near naked body -in the same way a stage set explores reality without replicating it.

I am inspired by my two recent visits to Bondi particularly the wonderful collection of photographs in the pavilion and the work of Professor Ann Game who has written on Bondi for over 20 years
Initially her work focussed on the role of Bondi in the national imagination and especially referenced the celebration of the body at Bondi.

I was initially inspired by her comment on the bodily narcissism so evident in Bondi that she has captured in the phrase
“We have no heart but skin yes” Anne Game and my images explore the skin of the models
More recently Ann and her colleague have explored the spiritual dimensions of Bondi and my works also attempt a reading of things inside the skin, the private erotic thoughts and spiritual longings of the models and their audience

I have been working on images of unclothed men for over 7 years set in my studio against a painted background of the eureka flag –this exhibition continues the process of staged photographic works
-each of the models enjoys being the centre of the attention of the camera and the viewer laying bare the dynamics of desire that is usually only implied by heterosexual men

Grosshans’ contemporary feminist critique of the hero in film is persuasive and illuminating and can be applied to elements of the Bondi myth –she critiques the mythology of the hero on two levels:
-it sets up an artificial world of the solitary hero whereas in fact the hero exists in time community and society and is defined by a complex interplay with others including the media his team his audience and his reputed sexuality and because it is essentially constructed as a male heterosexual story

“some part of me resists the narrative morphology of the Hero Quest as in service first and foremost to the spiritual evolution of men... it leaves women dangling, forced to contort ourselves to be allowed to come along, be one of the boys, cause that’s where the adventure’s been. In Heroworld woman as a conduit of life shapeshifts to the all too real tether, or to a neutered symbol in simmering float above it all, a reason for male action.”

Source: movies alone and discourse.wordpre…
My work sits firmly in the tradition of Gay men who have critiqued heterodoxy in sport and popular culture, from Frances Bacon’s erotic deconstruction of Edward Muybridge’s the Wresters ( Two figures 1953) to Juan Davila’s dystopian vision and Eric Bridgeman’s confronting contemporary works about homoerotic bonds between rugby players.

A Cardinal Sin

Cardinal Power 

I wondered why I enjoyed Drag so much but then I realized I have been around men in dresses most of my life -clerics of all sorts -fat Maltese curates saintly Irish Parish Priests as well as drunk ones, frightening Christian Brothers in their Black habits  -and as an altar boy I got to wear a black soutane with a white surplus . I always envied my cousins who were in the Bendigo diocese and got to wear bright purple under the white.


 Here are two prelates -Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne and his nemesis Cardinal Moran of Sydney  - that set the context for Australian Catholicism.

Like half of Australia I have been flowing the unfolding nightmare that is the abuse by Catholic Priests brothers and  Nuns of children . I followed 2 hours of Cardinal Pell's testimony when he was summonsed by the Victorian Parliamentary  Committee of Inquiry

- and then there is the ideological oppression I feel as a gay man from the Catholic Church that sees my kind  as  disordered individuals despite relying for centuries on gay men as their main image makers.

Pope, Cardinal, Bishop- This subject is a favourite  -its the coloured robes and the combination of spiritual and temporal power that makes the subjects so interesting
Here is El Greco's Cardinal in the NGV and Velasquez's shimmering Pope Innocent

and a more psychological study by Francis Bacon 

Cardinal Boots

Here is my first image responding to all of the above. It can be found at 

http://michaelzer0.deviantart.com/art/cardinalBoots-378354602

Infant of prague 

The pose comes from the Infant of Prague. 

My friend Ron has posed for these pictures in a leather and silk stole I had made recently as well as an old Carnaby Street  leather coat with silk lining turned inside out for the shoot  

All these images have many layers that I have collected over the last 2 years - I have chosen a picture of Winter Fungus for the Cardinal Boots image to reference the parasitical corruption of many clerics on the Bride of Christ AKA the Church

Cardinal Grimm

Cardinal Tin

Cardinal Dislaced 

Cardinal Stone 

Cardinal Book of Dried Bones 

I'm going to give the last word to a modern translation of the Sufi poet Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky 

My general advice is : Anyone wearing spiritual robes is potentially lethal: best to consider they already have two strikes against them .... and if they make just one false move-best to run or hit them with your bat!

Update no 1

 I am experimenting with text on the image such as Matthew 18.6

But whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 

Not sure to use just the reference or maybe a selection of the text? 

Matthew 23.27

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness.

Matthew  20:26-27

²⁶ Among you this is not to happen. No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant,

27 and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave,

update 2 on  9th July 

A fellow artist on deviant art    QUINT mCkOWN  quintmckown.deviantart.com

said recently 


"I believe that art, like religion, should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" 





Is art our  salvation when religion turns poisonous ?

 are the arts the only way we can salvage a meaningful belief system from the ruins of the great Theistic religions we have inherited ? 

The great Sufi poet Hafiz wrote:

The
Great religions are the
Ships,
Poets the life
Boats.
Every sane person I know has jumped
Overboard.

update 24th July 2013

I see the church as a stern and abusive father - it has provided me with an education, a rich history to draw on but many many of my family and fiends have been sexually and physically abused and as a father the church has failed that most basic of a father's tests - to give love and self esteem to all his children including gay ones 
I also see a need to  tell the real story of the church that includes many fine and noble examples of the love between men of the cloth. Here is an extract from a biography of a saint who was Bishop of Merz in France
About the year 626 he obtained the appointment of a successor to the Episcopal See of Metz; he himself and his friend Romaricus withdrew to a solitary place in the mountains of the Vosges. There he lived in communion with God until his death. His remains, interred by Romaricus, were transferred about a year afterwards, by Bishop Goeric, to the basilica of the Holy Apostles in Metz.


what are the chances Romaricus was his lover and life companion ?

What will it take to finally break the pattern of clericalism , homophobia , the oppression of women and fear of modernism that keeps abuse happening?

 stay tuned I'm thinking of some comic approaches to my art to keep the debate going !

Combining Image and Text

I am  an aspiring writer having completed seven chapters of a gay romance set in country Australia in the 50s
I am posing models to represent various scenes in the novel in an effort to enrich my powers of observation and description and get inside the skin of the main characters

Here are a few images with corresponding text


The subject is in his late 40's thin with a handsome face and a ....  The first pic has him in his white singlet and Y-fronts.- he is looking out of the window and down on to the street , the light catches the contours of his arse which looks larger and more fulsome in his white briefs . His singlet has a series of lines where he has twisted around to get a better view. He has more weight on the front foot

he has one foot up on the windowsill and is leaning forward with his arms folded and resting on his knees...The afternoon sun falls on his forehead , his upper arms and the front of his white underwear emphasizing his manly bulge.. he has a far sighted look on his face as he looks out through the window over the roof tops. He conveys a sense of acceptance, peace and resolution but there is also a sense of waiting for something ineffable

he has moved slightly and you can make out the detail on his body, although only the outline of his face is visible due to the brightness of the light .. his hand is inside his y-fronts and he is holding himself by the right hand and the left hand is on his hips

He is turning back to look at me. His white underwear is down far enough under the curve of his arse to readily highlight its shape- his buttocks are both curved and lean conveying a sense of power as well as vulnerability. The sunshine falls on the window side of each buttock, on his back and especially on his right shoulder as he twists back to look over his left shoulder.

His face is looking directly at me-why do you want me like this -while at the same time betraying the pleasure and pride he feels by posing in such a way .His left hand is on his hip - that space between the thumb and forefinger is beautifully caught in a triangle of light . The twist outlines his firm left breast and you can see his nipple at the most beautiful point possible on his chest

In the final scene he has moved to a stool a little way from the window's edge. The late sun dissects his chest at the nipple line , his face is searching , he is aroused but he wonders how this arousal will end.. His hands are on his naked thighs, his legs are open-a second band of light crosses his Y-fronts and reveals he is fully ready for any encounter. It throws a diagonal shadow over his briefs from their base right up and beyond the waste line. In the background the Japanese screen and the steel rungs of the stool he sits on provide a pleasing contrast to the organic shape of his so-lively body

vires ad vincula in Sacra servitutis at RED Gallery

In sacra servitutis  translates as 

In sacred bondage

vires ad vincula

force to tie

From the Red gallery exhibition guide 

 Michael O'Hanlon's works employ religious motifs, iconography and ritual adornments to discourse around paradoxical representations of homoeroticism in Catholic culture. Works such as Pieta ad Vincular (Pieta in Chains),2012, and In sacra servitutis vires ad vincula ( to tie in sacrd bondage ), 2013, from the series Word Made Flesh recontextualise Renaissance figurative traditions by fusing them together with contemporary queer narratives.

Thank you to those who came to my exhibition tonight -you may be wondering what I am going to do with this new creation my stola of leather chain and silk. 

Does anybody get the joke embedded in this image ?

 

or the reference to a recent event in this one ? 
Feedback from some who saw the show was that they didn't realize its religious significance because of the way it was hung i.e without the human form

Here is another shot of model Chris emphasizing the shape of the garment

Dauntless Jock @ Chill out

I recently found this old boys own story book featuring a rather handsome man in the jungle  on the cover with the intriguing title Dauntless Jock

I began to think how I could pose two models of mine Chris and John in dauntless poses and perhaps a little more deeply how I could demonstrate their Dauntlessness

Of course  I couldn't resit a direct reference to my favorite item of male clothing the jock strap - here is John posing against the tiles of St Paul's cathedral !The wonders of technology !

Chris shows his courage in other ways - here he is in the pic entitled Caught Talking Dirty

Come along and see other new works in this series and highlights of other recent exhibitions next Saturday as a part of group show at the Chill out Festival Daylesford


http://chilloutfestival.com.au/event/dirty-talk-by-gallerie-fetiche-3/

warning some of the work by other artists is more explicit than my work

On the nature of sacrifice

Manchester Unity Building Melbourne 

 A friend Will saw my exhibition recently and asked me about the piece Shiralee depicting myself naked carrying a naked black man and referencing the book by D'arcy Niland "Shiralee"

Shiralee refers to a burden or sacrifice one carries - it always appealed to my mother as its seems to be closely  related to the  Irish Catholic tradition of carrying ones cross -as in "We all have Crosses to bear "

In the book it refers to his preschool aged daughter who he takes from her mother when he discovers her adultery. He is an itinerant worker and he takes his swag and his daughter with him on the road. In the novel there is a constant tension between her developing capacity to walk by herself and her need for her father to carry her

Here are the opening lines of the book which are beautifully written


THERE was a man who had a cross and his name was Macauley. He put Australia at his feet, he said, in the only way he knew how. His boots spun the dust from its roads and his body waded its streams. The black lines on the map, and the red, he knew them well. He built his fires in a thousand places and slept on the banks of rivers. The grass grew over his tracks, but he knew where they were when he came again.

He had two swags, one of them with legs and a cabbage-tree hat, and that one was the main difference between him and others who take to the road, following the sun for their bread and butter. Some have dogs. Some have horses. Some have women. And they all have mates and companions, or for this reason and that, all of some use. But with Macauley it was this way: he had a child and the only reason he had it was because he was stuck with it.

Darcy Niland has commented

 "It is a biblical truth that all men have burdens. This is the simple story of a man with a burden, a swagman with his swag, or shiralee, which in this case happens to be a child. I have often thought that if all burdens were examined, they would be found to be like a swagman's shiralee - not only a responsibility and a heavy load, but a shelter, a castle and sometimes a necessity."

Sacrifice is a two edged sword - the one hand it is crippling painful and debilitating on the other it provides meaning and purpose.

These are the words I have imposed on my image


I have been reflecting on the nature of sacrifice  and have come up with five   categories .
These are -

1. sacrifice in caring for  children - of all sacrifices required this is the clearest one - if you are responsible for a child's welfare you have to put them before yourself until they reach maturity . If  you are not up for this sacrifice don't have children . There is a loss involved of freedom and self determination but as an empty nester I can tell you that it is not permanent

2. Sacrifice for a lover - the classic example - two people meet travelling - if they are to stay together there are three options - continue to live away from both sets of friends or family or return to one of the partners country of origin . Either way for the relationship to continue sacrifice is required . In a way its a true sign of love as opposed to mutual convenience - it is the sword hidden in the pinions of love as Kahil Gibrain would say.

However there  is a dark side - in my work as a psychiatric social worker and in my own family I have seen the type of sacrifice that puts up with abusive behaviour -such as suspiciousness or morbid jealousy in order to appease the partner. The price of appeasement is high in terms of physical and mental health and usually the behaviour gets worse

3. Sacrifice for an ageing parent
This is a bit more complex. An ageing parent's circumstances are a consequence of the society they grew up in and the choices they have made. If my mother wont drive because she believes its the role of the husband ( now dead ) how much is it my responsibility to transport her to every family function?
If she behaves in a homophobic and judgemental manner towards me how much do I still have to look after her ?

4. Sacrifice for a completely dependent individual with no capacity to make decisions
The toughest of all this is sacrifice without any rewards or recognition .My intellectually disabled cousin now has dementia and cant recognize anyone . Am I still responsible for his care ? In some ways this a new category of sacrifice made possible by modern medicine which can prolong life regardless of quality

5 The final sacrifice is that involved in the care of the dying - in the case of my father who got ill and died within a week mercifully short

Magnetic Sympathy

Magnetic sympathy
Reflections on compassion

I have been reading Walt Whitman’s description of his time tending for the civil war wounded and dying here is an extract

..Another thing became clear to me – while cash is not amiss to bring up the rear , tact and magnetic sympathy and unction are, and ever will be , sovereign still ..

The portable Walt Whitman Viking Press pg 453


Yesterday I caught up with Sebastian a friend of my son  who was just back from a few months travelling around the States. He held my hand close to his chest as we talked the pulsating link adding warmth and conviction to our conversation –there was emotional and physical energy being exchanged and for once it was possible to feel this happening in a physical as well as spiritual sense


As  in was reading the Whitman diaries –at the point of tears often – I looked up and saw my Pieta in red and black( modelled by Brett and Ron) with the cross of San Damiano that Lloyd had brought back for me and I realized that I too had a talent for compassion and that I could write about his convincingly because it is what I do and what I have been trained to do.

Red and Black Pieta by Michael O'Hanlon now on exhibition

I thought back on the journals that I must have kept while I was working as a locum social worker in an older persons mental health service and I realized what a rich wellspring they could provide for the characters in my novel.  Eventually I hope that I can remember some of the characters I had helped in my earlier career  people who taught me a lot even as I cared for them

Pieta of the Breast of Man by Michael O'Hanlon  now on exhibition