Davyd Whaley

Interview with Chelsea Latimer, from "You, Me & Charley"

2012-05-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Do you have any rituals, habits,rhythms….?

My large canvases start with my dream journals.
Whenever I wake up I write down all of my dreams.
I go into analysis w/a Jungian therapist to discuss my dreams.
Sketch out Ideas in my sketchbook.
This sketchbook goes with me to my studio, also my journal – I roll out canvas.
Draw my images, paint over them.
Listen to music when I paint usually. NIN or the Pixies. Very loudly.

I am a flat surface painter.
( fun fact – painting in my Prada shoes – I have a favorite pair of shoes since 2007 ) They are covered in paint but I feel like they are magic shoes, it’s silly.
I have favorite brushes too.
Must have coffee when I paint.
I’m sure it’s just like baseball players with rituals or writers who have a favorite pen, but it must feel right. ( If those shoes aren’t on the paint just doesn’t work as well)

Where do you pull your inspiration from?

Other artists inspire my work for different reasons, and also living in LA inspires me to create art. I love de Kooning for shape and color, Pollock for motion and gesture and light, Basquiat for emotion, energy and also color. I also get lots of inspiration from the things I see outside my studio and things I see when I’m driving around LA. Los Angeles excites me. My studio is in very industrial area, but full of Los Angeles colors, vibrant colors, which often pop out among the pale urban landscape. If I see a bright vermillion or teal graffiti it may inspire me. The same is true about shapes, I often am looking around outside my studio when painting, at the twisted barbed wire at the top of the industrial building next to my studio–it fascinates me.

What’s the most challenging part of your work?
The challenge in my work comes with learning to say no. Every opportunity is not necessarily the right opportunity. When someone approaches you in the art world, and I’m not knowledgeable about who that person is, I’ll often assume everyone will do the right thing. Art is a business. I do this because I love it and there are those persons out there, as with any profession, who will try to find ways to take advantage of artists. It’s challenging to stay up to date with making the right career choices. As an artist the most challenging part is to separate out those persons that may not be serious about your work, or even worse, may tend to take advantage of you financially.

Do you ever feel STUCK and how do you pull yourself out of creative ruts?

I haven’t been flummoxed with my painting and feel fortunate. I do hear about it often and feel empathetic to an artist experiencing creativity issues. There are so many thousands of things I want to paint a thousand different ways. I think a person could be creative even if they were assigned to paint a box black. There could be numerous ways of taking on this task if this was where they were stuck. It begins with an action – paint the box. A reaction to, as you say, begin this pull out of a rut. This is a very zen question.
I really like it. I think Damien Hirst probably appreciated this method after his medicine cabinets. One must be truly happy with where they are as an artist. I never really feel stuck.

If you could sit with one artist and have a conversation with them who would be and what would you ask them?

Marc Chagall. I’d ask what was it like in 1921 working with the War Orphans in Moscow. How was the art that the orphans created in Moscow. There isn’t a lot written about this subject other than he is quoted as saying “it was like giving raw meat to beasts”. Since he had previously been associated with Fauvism, is he using a play on words? “THE WILD BEAST” –is this the style in which they painted, or is he saying they were primitive beings because of the famine of the war. He leaves me wanting more information.

Name 5 things that contribute/influence to your pieces?

Unique Color palette – mix my own colors.

Flat Surface – action painter.

Stretch them after the work is completed – size is determined after work is completed.

No two items are the same, they are unique – although some may run in a series.

Raised surface, Impasto Technique.

Do you have a favorite piece of art that you’ve created? Tell us about it.

Fields Of Play is large Oil on canvas painting, which I worked on during the rainy season here in California. It began as a large color field painting, an experiment with color. I rolled out as much canvas as possible along my studio floor working flat surface and using mixing bowls to mix various colors. I sat mid canvas, edge of the canvas, and laid horizontal to create Fields of Play. I would listen to the outside trains go by during the rainy afternoons and feel a draft come through the windows of the studio wanting it to be warmer and have the sun to come out and be brighter. I would take breaks and read my dream journal about grassy plains and meadows, flowers, things that I saw in the water. Figures would appear and be painted out again, shadows hiding behind light. The texture in the painting is very elaborate, an entire under-painting exists underneath. Fields of Play was created as an expression and meditation. Our environment is always a factor in what we create.

You also teach correct? What’s the most important piece of advice you give your students?

The only expectation is we get through the material in a fun way. Each week I advise them to have fun with their work and enjoy themselves and ask questions. If they don’t understand how to mix colors, or what Chiaroscuro means in a particular example, then they stop me and ask questions along the way. I give them a lot of information about how to compose a painting properly, understanding that they are all beginners.

PERSONAL ARTIST MANTRA in a sentence or two.

“I believe dreams are meant to happen in series, like a set of books, which have chapters. We do not get all the information on how to live our everyday lives in just one dream. They come in short little bursts like thunderstorms. Just like storms, dreams have patterns if we piece them together. They build stories and tell us how to be reactive to CONFLICT.”

Comparing Body Language in Portraits

2012-01-20T10:07:00.000-08:00

Body language can tell us so much in portraits. Compare "The Convalescent"by Edgar Hilaire Degas to "Portrait of Leonilla" Franz Xavaer Winterhalter.

What are your first impressions of the works? Focus only on the posture- What does the story tell? In Franx Winterhalter's painting, students may say she only looks like a wealthy lady of means, staring off into the mountains at peace with the world. In contrast with "The Convalescent", the figure in that painting has the appearance of a sick woman who seems preoccupied or worried and looking down. She has red lines underneath her eyes. Notice the direction of the hand in the different paintings. The hand shows us the psychological state of the subjects in both pieces of art--"UP or DOWN".

Finally we look at the pose the artists have given us of the two ladies. In Leonilla, the woman is stretched out and relaxed, toes pointed in a very luxurious fashion. In contrast we have "The Convalescent" cramped in a tiny ball underneath her gown. We are a bit uncertain if she wants to stand or lay in the pose.

Art and Science

2011-10-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Cern: where art and science collide

Arts and science are similar in that they are expressions of what it is to be human in this world.

It is one of the fashionable arts movements of the moment. It is also one of the most troubled because the aesthetic is unsubtle and still evolving. With the seemingly giddy rise of the wonders of science in our culture, epitomised by the boyish Brit physicist Brian Cox's blockbuster TV series, “Wonders of the Universe” on the BBC, arts/science (sometimes called “sciart”) is gaining ascendancy in the 21st century as a movement of influence and power.

Almost every week, across the world, exhibitions are opening that are billed as arts/science to cash in on this emerging trend, which is also driven by new funding possibilities from science in the current arts cash crisis.

But we are in the middle of a crisis of another kind—a reduction in the wonder of creativity itself, and the question of who controls it and how. Creativity, and where it comes from, is one of the last great human frontiers, and one over which we have little control, cash crisis or no cash crisis.

But there is a battle to do just that, and reduce creativity to a systematic formula in our function-obsessed, input-output, application-driven world. Artists are being driven to become scientific, from the moment they fill in a funding application predicting their final production.

Let me explain. I work in arts/science myself. So, you could argue, who I am to talk? After all, I have created an artists’ residency programme at Cern, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and home to the large hadron collider. But it has at its heart the wonder of the creative process. It is not a residency which is process-driven or defined by an outcome; nor does it demand communication about or homage to the science.

I have deliberately set it up to be a laboratory of the imagination, where freeplay can happen. The science and the place are springboards of the imagination for the artists, not the destination, reason, mission or simulacra of production. When they apply, prospective artists may be asked to imagine a project they would like to carry out, but we fully expect that to change completely once they come to Cern—and who knows what will happen then? That’s part of the process.

This goes against the trends that can be seen in the arts/science aesthetic which has emerged from the 20th century, which contains, in my view, three very dangerous strands.

First, art as a communicator of science, where the artist represents the science to the outside world. This is, essentially, art as a publicity and communications tool, and can happen consciously or unconsciously when the artist becomes subsumed in the science. This is becoming critical in the current cash crisis, when artists are seeking new ways of funding their work and science promises new purse-strings.

Second, science as a means of production, where scientific methods, experimentation and technologies become the channel through which art is processed and made, subjugating the imagination to reductive processes.

Third, science as art – for example, when a snapshot of a cell is admired as beautiful or a chemists' laboratory is found in an art gallery. Both instantly become art, “daringly” crossing the threshold of the arts/science boundary, but in reality saying nothing more than that. It is an intervention that leads nowhere.

But there is a fourth, more invisible, strand, where the arts and science are in fluid interchange—just as they were in the time of Leonardo da Vinci, when he moved easily between the two. Here, the disciplines are honoured for their similarities as well as their essential differences.

Let me explain this fourth and more subtle strand in full. Arts and science are similar in that they are expressions of what it is to be human in this world. Both are driven by curiosity, discovery, the aspiration for knowledge of the world or oneself, and perhaps, as the conceptual artist Goshka Macuga said on her recent visit to Cern, a desire for world domination. She was half joking.

But they express themselves in different ways: the arts through the body and mind, often driven by the exploration of the ego, contradictions and the sheer messiness of life; science through equations, directed, collaborative research and experimentation that works in a progressive, linear fashion.

As Dr Michael Doser, the experimental physicist on Cern's cultural board for the arts, says: “What I find wonderful about working with artists is that they are just as fascinated by side routes and diversions as they are by the direction in which they are going. This is what makes artistic work really different from scientific work.”

These oscillations between sameness and differences form what I call the fourth aesthetic—the Leonardo way. Honour the differences and then amazing work, true arts/science work, happens. One example is Olafur Eliasson's Your Split Second House, shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, which took physics as its jumping-off point.

This installation of twirling water-sprays momentarily separated the drops of water under strobe lights. It is a piece about perception, and was inspired by thinking about how long it takes an astronaut to get out of a black hole. The answer is about a day. But to people who are not in the hole, the astronaut takes forever.

Or take the work of Mariko Mori, which is driven by engaging with opposites and the oscillations between the two: reality and fantasy, seriousness and humour, human and machine, technology and nature, science and religion. This is shown very clearly by Wave UFO, which is simultaneously an architectural piece, a scientific experiment in which the visitor’s brain waves become the work of art in a space-age pod, and a temple to meditation.

The piece is fuelled as much by science and technology as it is by Buddhism and an investigation of religion. Critically, Eliasson and Mori are not so enthralled by the wonders of science that their work loses its wonder and integrity.

For nine months, I tracked a very confident young Swiss artist and astrophysicist working together on a residency. For four months, they were equally enthralled by each other. But then there was a turning point. The artist said to me: “The science is so amazing that I have to prove that I understand it and that I too have a brain.”

From that moment, I knew he was lost. The work he did at the end of the residency was at best a communications piece trying to explain what quantum fields were. Now, a year later, he has rediscovered his playfulness by regaining his distance from the all-intoxicating wonder of particle physics, and is starting to create great work again.

I will leave you with two quotes, one from an artist and one from a scientist, in order to practise what I preach: mutual respect, equal exchange and difference.

Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”

Keith Tyson: “If you attempt to marry and equate art with science, then you fail. If you allow what is not similar about art and science, and their different methods and processes, to co-exist and thrive, then a real art/science collaboration and aesthetic will emerge. But at the end of the day, art and science are united by one logic and one impulse—both are attempts to understand what it is to be human and the world around us.”

That’s why I call Collide@Cern, the programme I have created, Cern’s latest great experiment, colliding elements even more elusive than the Higgs boson: namely, human creativity and the imagination. It was founded to honour the creative process, and to keep science and the arts in an equal balance of wonder—and apart, too. Let’s just have spaces for this to happen, and let the magic and the mystery—those chance operations the great John Cage talked about—occur.

DREAM CHASER - DAVYD WHALEY

2011-09-23T11:31:00.000-07:00

ARTWORKSMAGAZINE.COM

WRITTEN BY ERIN CLARK

One of Los Angeles artist Davyd Whaley’s most treasured possessions is a leather bound dream journal filled with many cryptic entries, and scattered among the written words filling up page after page, there are scribbled drawings and small paintings, too. Paint covered fingerprints stain the leather cover, which is worn in a way that implies much loved use. “It goes everywhere with me,” Whaley says bluntly. The journal is a roadmap of sorts; small snatches of the artist’s subconscious brought forward through Whaley’s dreams, and when pieced together, give him clarity and direction in his life and his art. “I wake up with a half of a thought, or a full thought about something, or some image that I just dreamed about. I’ll draw it, or write it all down and from there I go and talk to my dream analyst who helps me figure it out. Then I’ll take that information to the canvas.” Whaley works horizontally. He rolls out large pieces of unstretched canvas on the floor of his Los Angeles studio, mixes up eight to ten different paint colors and places them in small plastic bowls around the canvas, turns on his music, usually jazz but when he’s really feeling it he sometimes opts for the alternative energy of groups like Nine Inch Nails. With everything ready, brushes in hand and a Trent Reznor serenade turned up full volume, Whaley settles in for a 12 hour painting marathon – trying to catch a dream.

Dream interpretation is not new. Ancient societies in Egypt and Greece considered dreaming a kind of divine intervention in which the real meaning could only be explained by people with special powers. In contemporary times, Sigmund Freud popularized dream interpretation as the subconscious brain’s way of dealing with unfinished business of the day. Carl Jung took it further, arguing that dreams were a reflection of the entire unconscious, both personal and collective. Today’s common forms of dream interpretation are really a combination of the last two. Dream experts will tell you there are hundreds of common dream “symbols.” For instance, dreaming about ants can symbolize little things that are irritating or creating lots of little distractions in one’s life. The experts tell us that dreaming about death shouldn’t be taken literally but rather as an indication that the dreamer wants to be removed from a certain situation – and the list goes on and on. All of us dream, but not everyone remembers the details. That’s where a dream journal comes in handy. Dream experts say if you want to know what’s happening in your subconscious, keep a notepad near your bed and write down everything you remember as soon as you wake up. You can then rely on books and online sites to help you decipher your dreams, or if you are really into it, you can, as Davyd does, go to a dream analyst.

Whaley’s interest in dreams stems from a spiritual reawakening touched off by a health crisis – a brain seizure that sent him into a coma for six days. When he finally emerged from his unconscious state he was a changed man. “I was never interested in dreams before the bad seizure, but I’m grateful for it. It was like a restart on my life,” he explains. “It changed my relationships. It changed everything. Before the seizure I was one of those people who looked

at people who claimed to be ‘spiritual’ and said, ‘Yeah, right.’ Now I get it. I have an appreciation for truth, beauty, and deeper meanings. I understand that now. Before this, painting was more of an avocation. It now feels like this was what I was meant to do. It really was an awakening.” Whaley quit his day job and started painting full-time.

Growing up poor in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, Whaley always loved art, but it didn’t seem like a practical career choice. There was no way he could afford college so he signed up for the Navy and started down the path toward a degree in electrical engineering. A stint in the Navy, and then four years at North Carolina State and Whaley got his degree and started to build a career. Art was always a part of his life, but more of a hobby than anything else. His work took him to many parts of the country before finally landing him in Los Angeles. A type “A” personality, he enjoyed electrical engineering but admits now that there was a lot of stress associated with running his career. He doesn’t know what led to the brain seizure that so dramatically changed his life, but it was clear that after the fact he no longer could continue with his old career. Painting filled the void.

Whaley studied painting at the Art Student League of New York and had some gallery success early on in his “second career.” To his surprise, the first gallery he approached agreed to show his work, and his first exhibition was a huge success. “That first show was overwhelming at first,” he admits. “I was worried at first that no one would come, but it turned out to be a really big event. It was a lot of fun and I loved every minute of it.” Whaley also recently took another big step and moved his studio out of his home and into the Santa Fe Art Colony in downtown Los Angeles. The original building was a mattress factory turned robe factory turned carpet business before being renovated and developed into artist lofts in the late 1980’s. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art subsidize rent for the studio space, so it is in demand. When a loft became available last year, Whaley took one look at the place and applied almost on the spot. It’s essentially a three-room loft, which includes a large open studio with high ceilings and windows on two sides that allow for an abundance of natural light. Whaley could live there full-time, but instead he splits his time between the studio space and a West Hollywood home he shares with his longtime partner, TV producer Norman Buckley. Although he has lived in L.A. for only a decade, Whaley admits to the one sure sign that he has fully embraced his adopted hometown – he plans his commute based on traffic. “I’m at the studio until nine or ten o’clock at night, and I don’t get here until ten o’clock in the morning, so I miss most of the traffic,” he laughs. “Seriously, though, I love L.A. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

This spring Davyd will also give back. He will teach art classes to kids in east Los Angeles. “It will be challenging,” he admits, “but I’m really looking forward to it.” As a child who loved art but didn’t see it as viable option for his life, Whaley wants his students to see a future full of possibilities that include art – if that’s what they love. Whaley is the perfect example. He says he is grateful everyday for the life that allows him to chase his dreams.

7 x Eleven Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts

2011-08-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts

7 x Eleven video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAsAZkuQcPs

SEVEN X 11: ART FOR ART
July 25–September 4

2 West Fulton

Grand Rapids, MI 49503

616 454 7000

info@uica.org

Atonement

2011-07-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

ATONEMENT
Oil on canvas
(279.40 x 182.88) signed Whaley 2010

--> My method of painting is very non-traditional and physical. The under-paintings originated from my dream journal, which I kept close by while working

-->

ATONEMENT was painted on a flat surface, then stretched after painting.

It was created as an expression and meditation, exploring allegorical Christian dogmas.

Shoshana Wayne Gallery Bergamot Station

2011-07-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

http://bergamotstation.com/explore.php

Curated by Christian Cummings

& Doug Harvey

July 23 - August 25, 2011

Opening Saturday, July 23 / 6-8 pm

Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to present a summer group show curated by Christian Cummings and Doug Harvey.

Chain Letter is a group exhibition based on admiration. Initially conceived by Christian Cummings and Doug Harvey in 2006,

Davyd Whaley's paintings

2011-05-23T23:10:00.001-07:00

FIELDS OF PLAY is an oil painting on canvas, which I worked on during the rainy season in Los Angeles, California. It began as an experiment with color.

FIELDS OF PLAY is an oil painting on canvas,

which I worked on during the rainy season in Los Angeles, California.

It began as an experiment with color. I rolled out as much canvas as

possible along my studio floor, working the flat surface on my

hands and knees. I used mixing bowls to mix various colors. I

sat mid-canvas, on the edge of the canvas, and also laid down

horizontally to create it. I would listen to the trains go by outside

during the rainy afternoons and feel a draft come through the

windows of the studio, wishing it were warmer and that the sun

would come out and be brighter. I painted away the cold. I

painted away the negative aspects of the environment. I would

take breaks and read my dream journal about grassy plains,

meadows, flowers, and things that I saw in the water. Figures

would appear and then I would paint over them, shadows hiding

behind light. The texture in the painting is very elaborate. An

entire under-painting exists underneath. FIELDS OF PLAY was

created as an expression and meditation. Our environment is

always a factor in what we create or can be – sounds,

temperature, light. This is the bigger picture of my work.

I rolled out as much canvas as possible along my studio floor, working the flat surface on my

hands and knees. I used mixing bowls to mix various colors.

I sat mid-canvas, on the edge of the canvas, and also laid down horizontally to create it. I would listen to the trains go by outside during the rainy afternoons and feel a draft come through the windows of the studio, wishing it were warmer and that the sun would come out and be brighter.

I painted away the cold.

I painted away the negative aspects of the environment.

I would take breaks and read my dream journal about grassy plains, meadows, flowers, and things that I saw in the water. Figures would appear and then I would paint over them, shadows hiding behind light.

The texture in the painting is very elaborate. An entire under-painting exists underneath.

FIELDS OF PLAY was created as an expression and meditation.

Our environment is always a factor in what we create or can be – sounds, temperature, light.

This is the bigger picture of my work.

Artist:	Davyd Whaley
Title:	Fields Of Play
Date:	2011
Medium:	Oil on canvas
Original Dimensions:	64 x 149 inches
Primary color:

ART WORK DETAILS

Artist:	Davyd Whaley
Title:	Fields Of Play
Date:	2011
Medium:	Oil on canvas
Original Dimensions:	64 x 149 inches
Copyright:	Davyd Whaley
Awards:	3rd in the Painting Category for 2011 Best by ArtSlant

Flood the Subconscious, Denver CO

2011-02-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Studio 12: Davyd Whaley

Written by Ken Hamel

Davyd Whaley: Flood the Subconscious

Studio 12 Gallery

June 19 – August 16, 2010

Gallery Reception with the Artist: First Friday August 6th from 4-9pm

Davyd Whaley - No. 2

(from the press release)

Studio 12 Gallery features “Flood the Subconscious” by Davyd Whaley. June 19th – August 16th, 2010. Davyd Whaley creates a visual odyssey within the confines of Studio 12 Gallery with larger than life abstract paintings. They outline a visual concept of mythology and civilizations long gone. Babylon and No. 2 are the crowning pieces of the exhibit. Smallest of the prime numbers “No. 2” has greatness and beauty in its origin. Two has the claim as the primordial archetype. It is represented as balance, reflecting duality of the Taoist principles of Yin-Yang. “No.2” shows us the energy within ourselves and the importance of responding calmly to conflict. Eastern culture considers this number to be associated with great luck and happiness. In ancient times “No. 2” was called a glyph and looked more like an equal sign (=).

“No. 2” is presented with “Babylon” and represents the support system of the Babylonian empire, the two parts being Baal and Ishtar. It leaves us with present day thoughts on duality, in which "we as a society treat one group of persons differently from another. It speaks about double standards, which existed for married life, where a wife might be put to death for adultery, while a husband is free to enjoy as many women as he chooses, provided he does not seduce the wife of another man."(Mythology of Sex, by Sarah Dening, Chapter 3)

Sean Brown's Studio 12 Gallery
209 Kalamath St., Unit 12
Denver CO, 80204
303.629.8744
Mon-Fri: 10-6
Sat: 11-4
http://www.studio12gallery.com

The Way Of The Dream

2010-10-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

"If a man devotes himself to the instructions of his own unconscious, it can bestow this gift [of renewal], so that suddenly life, which has been stale and dull, turns into a rich unending inner adventure, full of creative possibilities."

Marie-Louise von Franz

"Creativity sometimes needs the protection of darkness, of being ignored. That is very obvious in the natural tendency many artists and writers have not to show their paintings or writings before they are finished. "Marie-Louise von Franz

BUTTERFLY

There is a lot of written material on dreams and analysis of the symbols we see while we’re dreaming. I find it interesting that many people seem to share a similar dream structure.

The mysterious experiences we go through while dreaming are amazing. If one keeps a dream journal, then one can take in what one is being told by the unconscious. For example, I dreamed about a butterfly, which flew through the forest each night. My life moved differently because of the way the butterfly came to me in my dream. I talked to my therapist and she asked, what color was the butterfly? Are you the butterfly? Where is the butterfly going? What did the butterfly represent?

What one does with the information one gets in a dream matters. Dreams can be something as simple as your body telling you, “Hey take care of me better” but the mind is very artistic. So sometimes the mind paints some wild pictures, like a car driving off a cliff. Perhaps it just means--go to the gym.

I believe one should honor what is seen in dreams by writing them down - good or bad. Own it. In this instance a butterfly is most definitely a great omen. I write it down. Yes, it's three o'clock in the morning. The mind tells us something important for a reason. This beautiful creature is also flying, moving upward to where there is transformation.

Later in the week I continue to have similar dreams where the same butterfly appears in a different setting like the ocean. I continue to journal. It sometimes takes weeks or even months to get through the dream. Later I may paint the dream and the symbols.

Davyd Whaley

BUTTERFLY

Oil, enamel on canvas, signed on verso

(60.96 x 45.72 cm)

Quote from Interview 2010:

"We do not get all the information on how to live our everyday lives in just one dream. They come in short, little bursts like thunderstorms. Just like storms, dreams have patterns if we piece them together." Davyd Whaley

The Defeat of Chaos

2010-06-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

TOTEM MUSE 2010
Oil on wood
(121.92 x 91.44 cm) signed Whaley on verso

Out of chaos comes order, out of great struggles in life comes transformation. The fight between ego and self continues in the subconscious, as told in the story of Babylon – and this is the story of my painting “The Defeat of Chaos”.

My dream images are abstracts, which were orchestrated by my muse, Vernon. Vernon was the first painter I ever knew—he’s now dead, but still visits regularly in my dreams. In this dream he had welcomed me, “I’m glad you decided to join the theatre”, as images of a floating casket rose into the sky and levitated above a beautiful field of tall grasses. We moved into a garden room occupied by my childhood girlfriend, who was discussing her deceased father and the strange broken objects he had left behind for her.

I related these bizarre images to Babylonian times – Tiamat, a god of chaos, is at war against Marduk in Babylon, wherein she raises the dead and creates monsters to overthrow his authority. In my waking conscious I resolve the conflict, hearing a female voice, which told me to paint to the point of exhaustion. A woman’s voice in my dream had told me about the creature I was hunting. I came along a mountain path and could see it’s muddy hoof prints in the garden along the creek. “What is needed from me?” I cried out as horrible cramps began and I started to shit out money. She told me I must find and kill the beast.

I continued to search for the creature along the mountain. The pain became unbearable as money continued to come out of me nonstop. Once again, I cried out to her, ‘I cannot take the pain’, at which point she told me to get off the path and seek help.

In life we must all get off the path at one point and seek guidance. In my dream I went into a pharmacy and found loose change lying on a counter. A man’s voice told me you have found your way, eat this to stop your pain. I gobbled down the money from the counter and my pain stopped immediately, he had given me the tools needed to find “The Defeat of Chaos”.

The creature I was hunting was the mythological “Bull of Heaven”, which had appeared to me in a previous night’s dream. My fear had now turned into a desire to take on and consume the creature. My paintings, my analyst, and my muses were all telling me I must do this.

The previous dream started very surrealistically and romantically. Norman, my spouse, and I are sitting in the cab of a pickup truck, looking at a prairie style home with large expansive windows. The modern structure had lights on inside, which were focused on a large painted collage of John Lennon and Mahatma Gandhi. Norman and I looked at the collage of the two men, and then at each other and begin to discuss what the two men had in common with our values. Why were we being shown this painting in this place? We shared peace, tolerance, love, and freedom above all else with these two men in the painting. As we discussed this, a young bull calf began grazing in the tall knee high grass. I began to feel love for the animal, a romantic love. I felt compelled to leave the cab of the pickup truck to go and follow the young bull. There was a barbed wire fence around the perimeter of the house containing the property. It was quiet, but it didn’t last. Soon a large angry aggressive bull appeared. He began to stomp and snort, his breath was hot and he began to bellow. The young bull continued grazing which angered the warring creature more and the large bull thrust his head against the fence ripping it out of the ground and came tearing towards the young calf. The smooth black calf stood his ground but with one angry spike the Bull destroyed him and began to come towards me. There was no safety to be found and I would not go back to put Norman in danger who was sitting in the truck. The Bull had shown power enough to not be contained by any means. I feel it was related to a story I had remembered reading about from childhood -- THE EPIC OF GILGIMESH, in which Gilgamesh was punished, by refusing to fornicate with the Whore of Babylon and she summoned the “Bull of Heaven” down to kill him -- only I was no Gilgamesh. What I needed was a dream manual for 911 services, some kind of ONSTAR shit override for dreams. Luckily they make those -- I’ve found they are called alarm clocks. Norman had a 5:30 AM call to Warner Bros. and the alarm clock went off and I did not get spiked from the “Bull of Heaven” just an elbow and a cold sweat.

Analysis Discussion:

Death – Transformation and Personal Growth both Psychological and Professional.
Chaos -- Areas of Focus in Art, Painting, Health, Meditation
Bull -- War, Struggle, Conflict, A war that cannot be Won
Money -- Don’t feed a conflict with more conflict; then it will resolve.
Path -- Stay on the Path – I am there, you hear me, I’ll show you the way, there are signs around (the tracks you know if you are on the right track).
Moral: Don’t give in or give up and listen to your muses -- especially when you see such strong ethical symbols like the ones in this dream, of people that are antiwar, believers in peace, love, non-violence and truth ( Be TRUE to who you are.)

I believe dreams are meant to happen in series, like a set of books, which have chapters. We do not get all the information on how to live our everyday lives in just one dream. They come in short little burst like thunderstorms. Just like storms, dreams have patterns if we piece them together. They build stories and tell us how to be reactive to CONFLICT.

No. 2

2010-06-11T14:05:00.001-07:00

NO. 2 2010
Oil on canvas
(121.92 x 91.44 cm), signed Whaley on verso

Smallest of the prime numbers “No. 2” has greatness and beauty in its origin. Two has the claim as the primordial archetype. It is represented as balance, reflecting duality of the Taoist principles of Yin-Yang. “No.2” shows us the energy within ourselves and the importance of responding calmly to conflict. Eastern culture considers this number to be associated with great luck and happiness. In ancient times “No. 2” was called a glyph and looked more like a equal sign (=).

“No. 2” is presented with “Babylon” and represents the support system of the Babylonian empire, the two parts being Baal and Ishtar. It leaves us with present day thoughts on duality, in which "we as a society treat one group of persons differently from another. It speaks about double standards, which existed for married life, where a wife might be put to death for adultery, while a husband is free to enjoy as many women as he chooses, provided he does not seduce the wife of another man." (Mythology of Sex, by Sarah Dening, Chapter 3)

BABYLON

2010-06-11T13:25:00.001-07:00

BABYLON 2010
Oil on canvas, signed Whaley on verso
(121.92 x 91.44 cm)

The Whore of Babylon is an allegorical figure of evil mentioned in the book of Revelation in the Bible. To many “Babylon” has become a symbol of imperial power. As many parts of the middle-eastern world look west, the new “Babylon” raises her head with a false salvation.