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2015/9

A Magazine for the arts and culture.

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EDITORS NOTEMEET THE TEAM

Jon

Jax

Mr. Wild

Luke

Mottled Gray

Shelly

Dunc

Editor in Chief

Creative Editor

Content Editor

Staff Writer

Staff Writer

Food Columnist(skellingtons Bakery)

Staff Writer

All hail Prometheus, bringer of fire, of flame, of light into the dark corners of the world, bringer of illumination and power! All hail to he that we owe so much for his treachery to the gods...But alas my kin...for we must also hail to our failure, our inability to put to proper use the quarry for which he toiled. Such power was not meant for man (Or woman, you’re just as bad), blinded by its potency, we fumble in the light, struggle to see but for the glare of the infinite. And so November passes, a burning effigy of a year wasted, we trudge to work in the dark and in the dark we make haste for home, if only our mastery of light and flame could tame the Winter shadow....But Winter is relentless...unless you’re in Australia in which case it’s summer right now and everything is BONZA!

So here in jolly Ing Land the trees are naked, though unfortunately Kendall Jenner still isn’t :( It’s cold and Christmas is just a stretched anus away, but this month on our cover we have one of the greatest pop artists of our time Mr Johnny Romeo to bring some colour into the bleak horror of your vapid life. We have some mouth watering recipes from Shelly Skellington, more awesome articles from our usual line up and some bat shit crazy art for your eyes to have aesthetic sex with. It’s a brand new issue for the same old you.

Our special edition book is complete and being proofed, all links to its purchase will be up and running before Santa clause has his nipple tassles on.

Thanks again to everyone involved, without your support we would not have this shiny periodical to present to you.

Remember guys,

For CalumKeep it surrealKeep it sublime

Jaxx, Jon & Mr WildThe Sublime Editors.

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CONTENTS

Cover image by Johnny Romeo, Cape Fear 2015, acrylic and oil on canvas

Published by The SublimeDesign by Jaxx Shepherd

Concept by Jon Wilford

26/01/1987 - 05/01/2015

THE SUBLIME ISSUE 2015/9

IN MEMORY OF CALUM TERRAS

GERMAPHOBIA 4

NECKBEARDS & THE DEATH OF IRONY 10

ART BY GORDON 13

EINSTEINIAN TIME TRIAL 20

JOHNNY ROMEO 22

SWEET POTATO HASH 32

KNIGHTMARIAN 34

MELISSA MCDOUGALL 40

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GERMAPHOBIASometimes grabbing a bottle of bleach and killing 99.9% of the germs is a good thing, but every now and then a germ comes along that grabs you by the creative jangles and draws you into its germy world. This month we have found a said germ by the name of Steven Cook. An up and coming artist from the sunny shores of Florida making a mark on the world with his conceptual characters and bizarre world. His imagination is fortified in the ink he uses on his board; his world is crazy and beautiful. As always we give a fresh and new creative a chance to let you into their world for you to fall in love with. So with out further a do, here is the germ himself with a bit about why he does what he does.

Fourth dimensional dropout. My name is Steven Cook I’m from Florida. I’ve been drawing since the age of seven. I first started my interest in arts after picking up my first marvel comic Spiderman. I loved the concept of somebody with amazing beyond-human abilities and the art just popped out at mi. continued reading comics and drawing my favourite superheroes. Around my early teenage years I picked up my skateboard and started rolling around. Something about the streets called my name. I still had art in my veins and I discovered spray paint and stencils. Holy hell! A free art show that everyone could see. So, I became a vandal. Tagging every spot I could, it wasn’t until after high school when I travelled the country picking up multiple techniques of painting, drawing and spraying. I’ve spent a good period of time in Atlanta and I think that amazing city helped me develop my style. I would have to say my style is a mixture of comic meets graffiti meets pop and explodes through the world into surrealism. I’ve been featured in artist world magazine a few times and am appearing in toxic toasts book beerwolf being released this fall. My favourite artists are Jeremy fish, Jeff Soto, Salvador Dali, Greg capullo, Jack Kirby, banksy, David choe, Ron English, Annie preece and every artist I’ve ever had the awesome opportunity to work with. Thank you for this opportunity.

Cook (germs)

you can follow me on Facebook

www.facebook.com/germaphobiawww.facebook.com/plagueofgermsinstagram: plagueofgerms

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NECKBEARDS & THE DEATH OF IRONY

Dunc

Note: this article is being written late in the evening of the 27th October. Due to the nature of these stories, we inevitably have not heard the last of the tale. The article is as up to date and as accurate as I can do at this time.

I’ve been writing for The Sublime now for quite some time and, I have to confess, loved every minute of it. One of my first articles, if I remember correctly, was surrounding the kerfuffle and furore of GamerGate around twelve months ago. I include articles on gaming herein because, in my opinion, gaming can be considered a digital art the same way a painting or sonnet can be considered contemporary art. It seems like a horrific step backwards then to read today that at the American South By Southwest festival (a weeklong festival held in Austin, Texas, celebrating music, film and all manner of digital fun abbreviated as SXSW) the organisers are cancelling two of the scheduled panels discussing harassment due to, yep, harassment.

SXSW director Hugh Forrest has posted online through the official festival blog and other social media that the “SavePoint: A Discussion On The Gaming Community” and “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment In Games” have been reluctantly withdrawn from the programme following threats of violence and to ‘keep the dialogue civil and respectful’. The exact nature and origin of the threats remains pretty unspecific at this time, to be honest half of it seems like rumourmongering and the Internet equivalent of Chinese Whispers.

Now, call me naïve but surely ‘keeping the dialogue civil and respectful’ applies to any and all parties involved in a discussion? How can those making the threats be taken seriously if the last thing they are is civil and respectful? Melodramatic as a comparison it may seem, but the old adage was always ‘never give in to terrorists’, was it not? I would never compare real-world terrorism to these kind of childish shenanigans, obviously, but the principal remains the same? If we let these arseholes win, what next?

This isn’t the first time such things have happened either. Anita Sarkessian, founder of the Tropes v Women series cancelled a talk at Utah University a little over 12 months ago following death threats. This is sadly only one in a line of such incidents.

Not content with sending threats of violence to people seeking only an open and honest dialogue, attempts were made to try and stop these panels going on the programme in the first place. SXSW has a system whereby proposed panels go up for public vote with an ‘upvote’ and ‘downvote’ system. It sounds simple and fair in principal but sadly serves as a focus for GamerGate ‘supporters’ from places like Reddit to aim at. Once available online both panels received a torrent of Downvotes in a very short period of time backed by some pretty vicious online commentary. These comments and forums, frankly, aren’t hard to find but I’m not going to link to them for two reasons. One, I don’t wish for them to get any more attention than they are already getting. Two, I’d

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never associate myself or this magazine with the kinds of things these ‘people’ are saying.

The gaming community is better and more mature than this, we cannot let the few bad apples spoil the barrel. I’ve been gaming since I was old enough to press Z, X, Space and Return on Dizzy and it’s been the same misperception of gamers since their very creation- an immature pastime for childish dorks. How can we hope to move past this stereotype when some feckless bastard spits his dummy out because, heaven forbid, people want a gaming environment free of threats, SWATTING, violent threats and inequality?

On a huge, huge plus side many media outlets are responding in the best possible way. As of the time of writing Vox Media (owners of gaming website Polygon) and popular Internet site/channel Buzzfeed have both stated that unless both panels are reinstated they won’t be attending. I have to commend them most highly for that, for what my opinion’s worth, beat them at their own game. I sincerely hope that more attendees do the same, if they can do it, so can we.

I’ll close with brief portions of the statements from both outlets, because like it or not this is a pretty serious time in gaming and this issue could well affect us all.

Buzzfeed: “BuzzFeed has participated deeply in SXSW for years, and our staffers are scheduled to speak on or moderate a half-dozen panels at SXSW 2016. We will feel compelled to withdraw them if the conference can’t find a way to do what those other targets of harassment do every day — to carry on important conversations in the face of harassment. We hope you can support the principle of free speech and engage a vital issue facing us and other constituents on the event.

Fortunately, the conference is five months away. We are confident thatyou can put in place appropriate security precautions between now andthen, and our security staff would be happy to advice on those measures. We look forward to

your reply.”

Vox Media/Polygon: “By approving the panels in question, SXSW assumed responsibility for related controversies and security threats. By cancelling the panels, they have cut off an opportunity to discuss a real and urgent problem in media and technology today. We have reached out to SXSW organizers and ask that they host a safe and open discussion of these issues, rather than avoid them. Vox Media will not be participating in this year's festival unless its organizers take this issue seriously and take appropriate steps to correct. We will work to find an alternative forum for this conversation and invite others who feel the same to join us.”

On a much happier note, I’m delighted to announce that me and The Sublime’s Shelly Skellington recently got hitched! Long-term readers may or may not have known we were engaged but we finally tied the knot. In attendance were Mr Wild and I was delighted to meet for the first time our very own Jon and Jaxx. I want to thank Mr Wild for the UNBELIEVABLE artwork he contributed to the occasion- if it was printed and on a table, he did it and did a stunning job. I also have to thank J&J for the AMAZING Nightmare Before Christmas painting they gave us as a wedding present. We truly were delighted with the picture and it’s taking pride of place on our wall as soon as I can find where the hell I left my hammer. I bet Thor doesn’t have this problem.

Play nice and speak soon, my friends.

Grizz Skellington

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1. If you have ever had the pleasure of staring out to sea along the Atlantic coast of America you may find yourself transposed and transfixed in the beautiful paintings by ‘art by Gordon’. Seascapes, bridge views and long winding roads fill the canvases painted in rich oil colours are the kind of paintings you will find, but who is ‘art by Gordon’.

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I have always loved nature and the outdoors and spent much of my youth fishing and hiking in the mountains of north Jersey and along the coast. I am also a certified scuba diver and if I wasn’t fishing in the ocean I was diving for lobster off the jetties at Belmar New Jersey.

Nature has always been an inspiration for me. I spent much of my younger years in the woods or somewhere outdoors. It is the only place I feel most relaxed and at peace.

When I was eighteen, just after high school I moved with my family to Dallas, Texas. I have lived there ever since, thirty-one years now. Although I would never consider myself a transplanted Texan I would say it is a great middle point in the US for much of my outdoor exploration.

My family and I travel as much as possible. We enjoy visiting Florida every year and Oklahoma on a regular basis where we kayak and fish, a passion my son has taken up as well.

All of my outdoor experiences and love of nature is reflected in my paintings and words, I am a frequent blogger and social media consultant. I have a full time job as a Graphic designer for a high-tech company and on the side I do freelance for a caterer, a science fiction writer and various other clients. I love ideas, possibilities and feel my future is dependent

on finding that one idea to take my career and interests to the next level.

2. Lets talk about your art, Take us back to your very first memory of art and what it was about it that made you fall in love with creating?

As far back as I can remember I was always drawing, not even that well to be honest. I remember watching my older brother drawing dinosaurs and always trying to improve my drawing. I never coloured in the lines never had good penmanship but it was those moments that I was aloud to be free and creative, that are when I shined.

I remember scratching an image on a black board for a teacher and finding she was very impressive. Suddenly I was left to be creative with my writing, at a detriment to my future handwriting I was aloud to be creative. I started drawing more, filling up small sketchpads, writing stories and adding pictures.

Nature was always my muse but I also loved drawing your typical violent monsters and war scenes. When I was thirteen, I was given a box of oil pastels and suddenly I was into colour, lots of colour, nature became even a larger part of my inspiration as I sketched with pastels. Again schoolteachers encouraged my creative art and I found something I excelled in and it never seemed to be work.

I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life that I didn’t know I would be an artist. The writing, photography and poetry have grown from that original root and now I’ve included animation, social media and web design to my interests.

3. Have you managed to turn your passion into your career? How was your journey to

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accomplish this?

I have always known I would wind up in some form of art career. I was told by an artist working marketing for a large electronics company that I would need to be creative in looking for the first job.She was so right; my first real job was an in-house photographer shooting portraits of children and families in their homes. This first job really ignited my love for photography and showed I could make a living at it.

Next was a long and very intense job in the publishing field, it was there where I learned hand skills and the basics of publishing many that are now defunct with the advent of electronic publishing. I remember pasting up text, cutting ba windows and stripping negatives and they were skills I’m glad I was able to learn.

My next leap was into the Electronics field by the suggestion of my brother who was already working at the company I applied to, he is an engineer. I learned to create on a PC after a brief familiarization with a Mac, which I learned at the publishing company working nights and middle shift to catch-up with the new trend in publishing.

The only portfolio piece I had was a tree frog which I illustrated in Arts and Letters on a PC-my family insisted I not show them the drawing but it was the best piece I had to show. I got the job and that started a career from print publishing to web design and learning animation on the job.

With all the freelance photography and illustration both technical and non-technical, my painting still takes up much of my time on the side. It has been a long and consistent process of using oils and pastels to capture landscapes. I am just starting to show in local venues and with the knowledge I have attained of social media am well on my way in creating a following of sort. I am excited about the future working as an artist.

4. You have had a good creative journey so far and it shows in your paintings. Your connection with nature shines through all of your work. If you didn’t become an artist what would you be doing now instead (maybe an alternate Steve)?

I actually am working on perfecting the next four options. The next would probably be a photographer

than a writer, graphic designer and web developer. Actually each holds probably the same next position. I would be a traveling something, photographing and writing about travel and food. If I were to go into something outside my creative field it would probably be a fishing guide, park ranger or professional scuba diver. I am completely invested and in love with the outdoors and nature. I feel in a lot of ways I am living a small part of a growing dream for myself. My perfect job would probably to be a traveling photographer writing about places around the globe. Next stop anywhere!!!

5. What would your perfect group exhibition be like? Who would be exhibiting with you (dead or alive), what music would there be, what food and what would the theme of work be?

Early in the fall, just as the leaves are turning. We will be having an impressionist exhibition, included among the artists are Claude Monet and his contemporaries just coming off their spring show. A new comer to the field is Gordon, an artist that mixes a bit of impressionism with some Hopper and perhaps even Manfred Shatz, both of which will also be showing with Gordon. The music will be contemporary independent bands such as Okerville River, Sparklehorse, The Counting Crows and Rilo Kiley all whom will be playing live before, during and after the art show. There will be seafood served from the local coast and wines from all over the world. It will be a music lovers’, outdoorsmen, foodie and art lovers spectacular. We look forward to your attendance. Please RSVP by.....

That was my introduction, an ad will soon follow, not sure if Monet, and his contemporaries are going to be able to make it.

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EINSTEINIAN TIME TRIAL

Mr. Wild

Oh what a truly wondrous thing a beginning is. Just consider it briefly for a moment.

Without beginning’s none of the wonderful things that have happened in your life would have ever, well, began. You would never have started that one dream job you had in the summer after you left school, never begun saving for your first car, you would never have seen the beginning of the Star Wars saga (Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.).

In fact your own life would never have begun at all, nor anybody else’s, nor evolution, or the planet, the sun, the galaxy, the universe, the big bang NOT ANYTHING EVER!

Using this logic one can find only appreciation for the fact that the world, and the universe, even if in some abstract and unknown way, has a beginning.

BUT WAIT!

Some famous scientist (probably Einstein) said that ‘Every action will have an equal and opposite reaction’. Yeah it wasn't Einstein, but FUCK IT.

Having come up with this Gem of a scientific principle Einstein realised that whatever begins must in time end. This included the nice bath he had just begun to enjoy, and thankfully World War II which he was also swamped in at the time. Given the rather depressing and genocidal mood that hung in the air of 1940’s Germany Einstein’s thoughts were distracted on an all too regular basis by the notion of death and he became increasingly obsessed with the idea that he would die someday too.

After scaring the shit out of himself like this on an almost daily basis he concluded he would spend the rest of his days on the ‘problem’ of time and distanced himself from other problems, like hair control, moustache trimming, and what to have for tea.

Surely, he thought, the fact that anything begins is somewhat cruel, for only in beginning can something ever end, and must surely end. A beginning is no more than a death sentence, a point in time in which we can say with absolute certainty that this thing will begin to decay, decline, and die away. The problem though, as he saw it, was not that time existed, but that our minds were unfairly tuned to follow it in a linear straightforward pattern.

Coming to this conclusion was a big step for Einstein. He had finally realised that time was not some abstract solipsist condition, but it was in fact a real, physical phenomenon. Though warped by the mind of the perceiver and the conditions he exists in, it was still as real a component of the world as the other laws he had discovered, like gravity, motion and the three laws of robotics. Like all laws though it could be bent or even broken. In Einstein's day nothing was done unless it was going to be done properly, so rather than attempt to bend time first, Einstein went the whole hog and attempted to just simply break the shit out of it.

He spent countless hours poring over equations and schematics for what he considered the ultimate time machine. It would not only prevent time from marching him off to the great laboratory in the sky, but would end causality itself, free the human mind to pursue whatever end it wished, even if it were an end that didn't end, like that one in Return of the King.

The process proved to be quite a frustrating one though, way more frustrating than trying to poke that girl from work, but after spending close to a year on the problem and still not achieving his goals he confided in his close friend Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer’s casual response was “Don’t worry old chap, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time!”. Oppenheimer's decapitation at the hands of one of Einstein's murder goats swiftly followed and the help Einstein needed was finally in his hands.

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He hard wired Oppenheimer's mind to his own, and with twice the brain capacity was able to develop just the thing that he was looking for. A bomb with enough force that it might actually puncture the sinew of reality linking time to the physical realm.

He had single handedly constructed the worlds first Temporal Interference Tool...or TIT for short.

On the night he first beheld the TIT he was reported to have spent all his savings at Frauline Boobhauser’s Back-door Inn to celebrate. After exhausting himself for a week he finally, and quite literally, pulled his thumb out....of a lady's bottom...and took off to America with his bomb concealed in a newspaper under his arm.

He quickly convinced the US president to drop it ‘on anyone’ by telling him it would simply ‘look fucking awesome’. A few more quips to the senate about how this thing would Kentucky fry any chicken in the blast radius and the government was sold. The bomb was shipped off to Japan, chosen not because they were the enemy, but because they had, by far, the densest chicken population of any nation.

While the U.S. leaders licked their lips and slipped napkins into their collars Einstein went and sat outside that clock from Back to the Future, and waited.

Einstein hated waiting, waiting was another condition that wouldn’t exist if time didn’t, you only have to wait for things if it takes time for them to happen. Einstein couldn’t wait to abolish waiting, no more sitting about waiting for his tea to cook, no more waiting for his wife to shut up about cooking it. He twirled his crazy moustache at the possibilities.

Then, at precisely poo o'clock in the stevening the bomb went off as planned over the extremely unfortunate citizens of Hiroshima. The blast was so utterly effective that at the moment the atoms split and chain reactioned, within a fraction of a second everything stopped. The nuclear fire created by Einstein's hell machine had just about gone mushroom, Einstein kept his eye on the clock, it had stopped moving, the plan it seemed had worked.

Well sort of.

Time hadn’t stopped in quite the way that he had assumed it would. In his original hypothesis he had theorised that time would simply cease to be, and as a result everyone would be able to go about their business never getting old and never dying.

Pretty Naive though, even for the big E. What had actually occurred is that all time had simply ceased to flow conventionally, forcing everyone to experience time in one big incomprehensible lump.

It had become apparent to Einstein, and everyone, that time didn't really exist, not properly anyway, it actually was a solipsist experience, conjured by some limitation of the quantum properties of neuronal activity in the human brain.

The only thing people could take from this was the fact that time existed all at once, from the start to the end, like a roll of film, every frame of reality already exposed on it's celluloid flanges.

So what of free will? Did Einstein really choose to do the things he did? He could no more choose than an actor following a script could. He was destined to do it, he could do nothing else.

The only upshot was that father time (the guy in charge of temporal linearity) was so annoyed at having his temporal projector broken by Einstein that he intervened and attempted to put things back the way they were...

For a moment at least he was successful, but Einstein was a smart man and had foreseen this outcome in the instant that all time became apparent to him. He had taken the time to regress to a previous incarnation to make preparations for the arrival of Cronos.

And so Cronos was captured and presented before the UN to face a charge of crimes against humanity. His relentless march had meant the death of every human that had lived and died up to that point, not only that, but his plans for the future also involved the pre-planned deaths of everyone else. He had removed their free will, their right to choose, the very basest of human rights, besides the right to play with oneself at work.

And so the trial would begin, as all things do...at the beginning...and what a joyous thing that is, for only in beginning can things truly end, like this article, and the nonsensical ravings of it's mad creator.

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JOHNNY ROMEO1. I have always admired people who have a bold, larger than life personality. These people can fill a room with their presence, express themselves with so much bravery and dazzle us with their attitude. When I see a piece of art work that has this kind of personality I am always intrigued to see if the artist behind them is just as loud as the work. So let me bring your attention to Johnny Romeo, an artist that on paper has one cool name, and a mighty portfolio of loud beautiful and striking pop art. Who is the enigmatic Johnny Romeo? . I’ve always strived to be a like TV. I grew up watching TV. I was fascinated by the stories and lives I saw on TV. I was fixated by the catchy persuasive commercials that got inside my head. Actors were my earliest heroes and TV helped create for me so many fond childhood memories. As a kid, whilst watching TV, I was unaware that I was living in a constructed ‘television’ world. I thought it was normal to feel like part of the Brady Bunch family. TV gives us much fulfilment and we can’t help but relate to the stars and stories. As a child I did and now as an adult I still do. I also constantly drew as a child. It occupied much of my youth. I drew football players over and over again. I drew from television, magazines, books and journals. Drawing was something I did everyday for fun. As a kid, I spent much of my youth at the local shopping centre. The centre was where I meet up with other kids, where I got up to mischief skating in the car park and more importantly where I discovered the magical world of consumerism. It was like I was Dorothy entering magical Technicolor in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I instantly felt connected. I was no longer alone. The

colours and advertisements pulled me in.Pop culture has always fascinated and intrigued me.It constantly inspires me. I do believe we construct our identities from the vast array of images that pop culture immerses us in.I borrow from it and have an obligation to champion for it. I’m passion about it.I’m never discouraged by it. Pop culture really never dies…. it’s impact resonates and multiples! As a kid, I was a skater and a graffiti artist. I was also a B-Boy. I also worked in menswear. I’ve always loved colour. I’ve always known I’ve wanted to be an artist.When I finished school I went to University and studied Art. Over the course of my studies, I abandoned my spray cans in favour of oil sticks. I guess the black graphic lines are leftovers from my graffiti days and my throw-ups. In terms of colour, Picasso is my childhood hero, my constant inspiration and lifelong obsession.

2. I have always been so fascinated by immersing myself with pop culture and always admired those who have managed to champion it and find fulfilment from it. Over the years I have spoke with a few artists who have started on the streets and ended up in the white rooms of galleries. How did you find the difference of the (illegal) wall to the white fresh canvas? Basquait always ended up putting his mark on a wall even though he had his studio and canvas. That’s a difficult question in the sense that I’ve never really had a career as a graffiti artist. Generally speaking when I was growing up, graffiti artists didn’t have careers. They still all don’t to a certain extent. It was more primal for me. We were like suburban dogs trying simply to mark our territory. We saw ourselves more as graffiti writers and not really as graffiti artists, although we were all good artists. What we drew wasn’t strategic, calculated or political. It didn’t even make sense. It was raw, experimental and influenced by movies like Wild Style, Breakdance

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and Electric Boogaloo. It was also heavily influenced by music. Hip Hop was a huge influence on the way we thought, what we drew and how we acted. Everything seemed to be futuristic. A lot of the music was about space and you would see those elements in the artworks we were doing. We were simply reckless, energetic, crazy kids on skateboards tagging, drawing and painting our youth away. We were trying to find ourselves and in doing that, trying to also identify ourselves in the world in which we lived. We hung in groups and they became our crews and teams. We moved around in large numbers and everybody got on. It was a shared mentality defined by where we lived and the music we listened to. When I made the transition to the galleries, things became far more intended and measured. That was probably the biggest difference. What I was doing prior was subversive. It was also territorial. I never really thought about the public as such but more about my peers and other writers. It’s different in a gallery sense. There are clients and collectors. They place a value on what you do. That definitely changes the way you paint. You need to give in to the system to a certain degree. In doing so, my thought processes have changed, and to a certain degree, my works aren’t as underground or raw anymore. They needed to cross over and be refined. That’s probably the best way to explain it. They are more planned and structured. I long for the day where I can loosen or slacken my aesthetic. Where I can dispose of the heavy reliance on figuration. It would be wonderful to embrace the rawness again and not have to complete, refine or over-plan things so much. That’s a difficult thing to achieve… It’s like driving your whole life and then suddenly having to walk for transportation.

3. I guess the sacrifice to making art your living is the art itself to a degree. You haven’t mentioned art school of any sort, were it through graffiti where you learned your creativity and then having to refine it for the gallery world where you became so skilled or was there any education involved? It was a bit of both and it’s kind of interesting because everything influenced everything. I guess it

was a timing thing. As a young child I always drew and I always watched TV. I drew from television. I loved and I was intrigued by pop culture. Whilst at school, I was introduced to the works of Picasso and the Pop artists. I instantly knew that I wanted to be an artist. It was love at first sight! When I finished school I went to University and studied Art. Once I finished University and Art School, I immediately started exhibiting. It has been my life ever since. Graffiti gave me a reason to draw as a young kid. I was into a lot of things…skating, BMX bikes, football, music, breakdancing but graffiti gave me a reason to draft up ideas, incorporating pop elements I had seen on TV and in magazines. I was able to use colours like the colours my hero painters were using. I incorporated elements from the things I was into. It was a mash-up of all these creative influences and if you look closely at my work today, this is all evident. Whilst at University and Art School I found an effective and somewhat effortless way of combining text into my studio studies and works. I suppose it was a by-product of my graffiti days. There was no resistance to my visual and verbal approach by the teachers or lecturers. People seemed to enjoy the freedom and spontaneity my works delved into. It just became my process and I was encouraged to look at the works of Hockney, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Haring, and Basquiat. I guess my teachers wanted to direct me more towards fine art. My work evolved over time and took on a far more pop orientation. Much of my work today deals with the way we connect with pop culture. Over the course of my studies, I abandoned my spray cans in favour of oil sticks. I guess the black graphic lines are leftovers from my graffiti days and my throw-ups. I use oil sticks as drawing implements on my canvases. I use them much the same way one would use a pencil or an oil pastel but with far more frenetic pressure. I like the creamy texture and the expressive, gestural lines created. I also find them richly pigmented. They allow me the freedom to express with the type of spontaneity my work requires. I peel back the skin with a cotton rag and the solid stick allows me much more fluidity,

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sensitivity and robustness. 4. With your influences being so steeped in the past 100 years of art history, and considering how the past century has made more of a noise compared to the past 1000 years of art, how would you like people to perceive/be influenced by your work in the next 100 years? I am pop culture enthusiast and participant. As a pop painter much of my work deals with the rise of the mass media and the fall or decline of the individual. The ‘death of the human’ and the development of new perspectives on society, knowledge, discourse and power. I constantly grapple with the critiques of modernity…modern life, modern living and modern thoughts. People call my work expressive pop and urban. I like to think of it as reflective realism…a bit like Socrates’ mirror of reality. I would also hope my work is particularly pertinent for its union between the dark underbelly of pop culture and its glossy veneer. Achieving this balance has always been something I’ve been conscious of whilst creating. What I think is of most importance in achieving a seemingly reconciled portrayal of the good and bad sides of pop culture is the understanding of mediation. The thing about pop culture is that’s it’s so easy to switch off or turn over. It’s intrigues us but it also bores us. Unlike Andy Warhol the tape recording and Polaroid camera voyeur or Richard Prince the social confidant, I see myself (and would hope people see me) as a pop culture mediator…a neutral third party who attempts to assist people involved in better understanding their pop culture disagreements. I would hope that my works assist in resolving differences the audience might have with pop culture. Sometimes I try to also switch off or turn over. Sometimes like Warhol I’m the outsider and I paint with a sense of dislocation…of being at odds with

society. But sometimes like Prince I’m the insider…the whistle-blower who has exclusive access to private pop culture information… I do know my intentions are always to like both Warhol and Prince to never stop and to never settle blurring the lines between fine art and lowbrow culture. I hope that message would remain with people!

5. To me your art holds the integrity and truth of pop culture, I read the satire of culture in your work and feel like an outsider looking in through a looking glass at how people have got it wrong being obsessed with what they think is right, it makes me laugh at the conformists and then realize, I conform too, I am laughing at myself. This is why I love your work so much. If you didn’t narrate pop culture in your work what other meanings do you think you could have chosen or may choose to study in the future? It’s very hard for me to lose my pure pop mentality whilst I’m living an everyday pure pop reality! We all live that same reality and ultimately we’re all drawn to it, occupied by it, mesmerized and consumed by it. It’s the POP GRIND. It’s glamorous and so alluring. It’s obsessive and overwhelming. I revel in my role as pop commentator. Pop culture on a daily basis excites me. I’m very interested in themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects and imagery. I love banal or kitschy elements of pop culture. I’m also interested in the use and juxtaposition of words and symbols and the clever use of irony. Products, labelling, brand names, icons and logos all intrigue me immensely. All these things have significance to me because they’re so much a part of our everyday lives. They are so much a part of my process as they are of my life. I thrive off that energy. I totally believe we construct our true identities from the vast array of images that pop culture engrosses us in on a daily basis. We’re bombarded by pop culture and in turn it helps define who we are.

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I’m never alone whilst I’m in a shopping centre, news agency, reading a magazine, watching a movie or television show, etc. My works are about just that…the way we as an audience connect with pop culture. My creative process is all about the idea to always keep moving…. like TV! I’ve always wanted to be like a TV…continuous, colourful and constantly broadcasting stories, romances, news, commercials, sports, infomercials and dramas. I remember as a kid when TV used to turn off and go to static or that colourful screen when it signed-off and closed down for the night.I used to be so sad and lonely and looked forward so much for the morning when the TV would sign-on (or start-up) again. TV obsessed me. As a result, my images are often recollections of my childhood. Those impressionable things I saw as a kid that somehow never quite left me. Pop culture has always fascinated and intrigued me. I want my works to be viewed like TV. Text in my works represent ad breaks…a commercial or some type of media advertising. Placement of text is so important in my works. This is in keeping with pop culture. The words must convey a message. Sometimes crossed out words have greater meaning. In the future, I’d like to break away from figuration. My work is very tight. It needs to loosen up and become almost semi figurative. I’d like to embrace more expressionism in my work. This will come with age and maturity as a painter. I see the next ten years in my career as being the most important. Painting pop can exhaust you. The brightness and high-octane energy of pop culture can wear you out. The sugar rush never ends and the desire to continuous keep feeding it never ends dies either. Ultimately, it would be great to maybe one-day take a break from painting pop. Maybe it will become important in the future to paint emotions and feelings. I’d like to explore

introspection. But right now…I’d like to paint helicopters and people wearing hooded anoraks. I’d like to paint charming expressions of child-like optimism.

6. You mentioned earlier on how you use oil sticks, and how they have become an important part of the images as well as a medium you have become comfortable with using. I’m interested on how you decided to use these, what mediums have you experimented and did you fall for them with a happy accident or was it planned? I learnt to make a lot of technical changes to my approach when entering University and Art School. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. I had to be innovative and adaptive. As a result, lecturers often questioned my methods and fellow students looked on in astonishment. I was able to revisit skills that I had earlier acquired as a teenager and graffiti artist. I experimented a lot and ultimately learnt a lot more through art making. It was very much a trial and error process when I was expanding my repertoire. For instance, in my drawing classes I used to crush chalk pastels and mix them with water to create a thick paste, which I would then smear or brush onto my works. I’ve always been interested in pure concentrated colour. I often carried washes mixed in jars around or shavings and grindings of coloured powder, which I had crushed and pulverized. I would scratch into the thick wash while it was still wet. I inscribed words and I wrote onto my works once they were dry. I would use text and lots of it in my works. My text always accompanied the image or supported it. When painting or drawing, I always worked in a quick, frenetic and desperate manner. I was totally fixated and absorbed to the point of exhaustion. It was gestural, juvenile and very primitive. It was as if I was an athlete in competition against myself on view. That was my mind-set. I guess when you think and work like that as an artist; you make the necessary mistakes to learn and grow from. Ultimately, that helps to increase the complexity of

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your understanding of what you’re doing and that brings about accelerated growth. Once I discovered oil sticks, I stopped using spray cans. It was a natural progression. They gave me the freedom and the expressive, gestural lines I required. I could apply them quickly, easily and dynamically. They were perfect in the sense that I could smudge, blend or mix them directly in an expressive way. They were exciting. They were amazingly bold and had a creamy texture. They were pure in rich colour and they became part of my new approach…part of my new world. I found the equivalent to the spray can. The oil sticks allowed me to combine the vividness, depth and consistency of traditional oil paint with the natural ease of application that was typical with pastels and charcoals or in my case, spray cans. I was sold.

7. It is always inspirational to hear another artist talk about their mediums and how they came to use them. I have noticed on your instagram that you have done allot of travelling around the world. Has your art given you the opportunity to explore the globe and how has it? I’m fortunate enough to be constantly travelling with my works and shows to news cities across the world. I’m blessed that I’ve found something in life I’m totally passionate about and have found inspiration through that. It has allowed me great opportunities to see the world and meet so many wonderful people. I feel truly connected to the world because of my work. These days, I travel extensively and divide my time between Sydney and Los Angeles. After finishing University and Art School, I started out as an independent artist exhibiting through ARIs (artist run initiatives) galleries. I had hundreds of shows…solo shows, group shows always trying to build an audience of people that liked my work and would come to my shows. Becoming an artist is all about being on a journey. Nothing is easy because your artistic evolution and growth takes time. It also requires dedication, perseverance and a desire to succeed. You also require a great deal of luck.

In the beginning, exhibiting endlessly as an independent artist is tiring. You need to be disciplined and follow you dream. Commercial galleries like to see that you’ve put in the hard yards. Eventually a commercial gallery approached me. Then others followed…then others in other countries. Nowadays, galleries contact me directly requesting to show and represent my work. My art has provided me the freedom to experience the world and to connect with people worldwide. It’s like I’m painting their childhood memories and they understand that and I feel so blessed to be doing it.

8. I do really enjoy following your journey on the old social networks. What advice would you give to our readers that are just starting their creative journeys? Find something you’re passionate about and find inspiration through that. You’ll find that your interests are often the best place to begin. Connect with something. Your passion will indeed be a conductor for true inspiration.

Always remain positive about what you do.

Try always to be productive and to always keep moving…like TV! Strive to move forward everyday. Be committed to making good art. Make it an obsession.

Have absolutely no regrets.

Aim to work for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, making your practice an automated part of your life.

Sleep less. If you sleep 8 hours a day and live to be 75, you’ve slept 25 years of your life. Sleep when you’re dead!

If you’re a painter, aim to work with ideas and themes. These will inspire you. Things you see, hear or read. From this broad platform, begin channelling in on specific works. Never paint a show…the show will always paint itself! When you’re so engulfed in your subject, things resonate and pulsate…. These are then your paintings!!!

Finally, because life is art, it’s so important to the way we think, live and see the world. Colours make us feel. Never for one minute imagine life without art.

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SHELLY SKELLINGTON’s RECIPES

SWEET POTATO HASH

Sweet Potato Hash

This meal reigns supreme over all quick fix, healthy, after work, no fuss, no mess dinners that I make. There’s a time and a place for slow roasted rosemary infused leg of lamb served with dolphinoise, and after work isn’t it. This version has a small amount of chorizo, but feel free to add whatever you want. It's one of those dishes that can just hoover up whatever is knocking about in the fridge, so it’s friendly on the purse too. I would highly recommend using a grater attachment on a food processor for this, you don’t have to, but have you ever tried to grate a large potato with a box grater? It's tedious and painful (yes grated Shelly finger ended up in the first hash I made) so use one if you can.

Serves 2Ingredients1 large sweet potato 1 red chilli3 or 4 spring onions100g chorizo2 large garlic cloves1 egghandful of chopped mushroomshalf a green pepper

Get a large frying pan or wok on a low/medium heat. Chop the chorizo into little bite size chunks and put in the dry pan. Whilst they cook, peel the potato and grate with the processor if using one. Place the grated potato in a large bowl. Keep an eye on the chorizo, don’t let it burn. Once it’s done to your liking, pick it out of the pan with tongs and place on some kitchen roll, leaving the chorizo oil in the pan. We are going to utilise this delicious oil! Peel and finely chop the garlic, chilli, pepper, mushrooms and spring onions. Add to the grated potato and crack in an egg. Using wet hands mush it all together so it’s incorporated. Add the cooked chorizo and mix it in. Throw it all in the pan and turn the heat up to medium/high. It will have the consistency of grated carrot, and doesn’t necessarily look like it has bonded together, but just be patient. Use tongs, keep turning over. As it cooks, the potato will go from a deep orange to a yellow, with a more mushed up consistency. After about 20 minuets, test the potato, it’s cooked when it is yellow and the consistency is smooth and no longer grated. Top with some fresh herbs if you have them, and voila! Done.

Enjoy!

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Suicide 27 By Jon Wilford

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KNIGHTMARIAN1. We are always looking for a fantasy artist to feature in The Sublime, after all their work always transports us to a wonderful place. While out on the worldwide tinternets we came across one of those special fantasy artists. Some one who has a unique way of creating truly amazing worlds. We clicked on a “Knight-mare” of a website (www.knightmariansfantasyart.com) and came across an awesome catalogue of work that wasn’t what we was expecting from the name of the website. So who is this Knight-mare?

NightMarian was a nickname my ex gave me years ago when I drank heavily. When I quit drinking I turned it into a positive and added the K. The K is for knowledge, like knowing not to drink ever again!Knights are pretty cool, and quite frankly Maid Marian is a Knight of the forest in her own right. I was born and raised in the “forest city” of Savannah, Ga., so it all fits rather nicely. I also work for the forest city of Savannah, believe it or not, my co-worker’s name is Robin and our office is located in the ‘hood!Really, you can’t make this stuff up!I actually lived the nightmare of nightmarian rather than paint it on a canvas.

2. I see a huge earthly influence with in your fantasy art. Does this come from the forest you work in? Tell us about your usual day and how that can influence your art.

I came into this world a double Virgo with a Leo rising. I think the element of Earth has always had a huge influence in everything I do. I started growing things and my favourite thing to draw, as a child was a tree. It still is! I have always had a garden full of flowers so it was completely natural for me to want to work in this gorgeous city of mine as a landscaper, which is how I came into the Park and Tree department. I love flowers, trees and all things related to our great Mother Earth.I have always had a close affinity with Nature and her spirits and have always been able to see the wee folk that live, love, and play in gardens. I have

forever seen the faces of the spirits, which dwell in the Live Oaks and many other tree species within my forest city. It’s amusing to me that when these spirits are pointed out to folks how many others can actually see them as well. I guess people either do not pay attention or it could just be the spirits do not want to be seen by them. Who knows? I have not asked.The mystical realm has always been with me, which is probably why they allow me to represent those around me using the humans in my life. Most of my art is like that, however not all. Sometimes they just show up on the canvas, peeking around blades of grass or hiding in the trees. I find them incredibly delightful when they do appear.

3. Sounds like a perfect outlook on life all together. How did you make the connection with the natural world and the painted world (what made you start painting)

My eldest sister, Jeannie is the person I credit for inspiring me to paint. She saw something in me when I was very young so she kept me in supplies and cheered me on. I had drawn portraits of my siblings and cousins, which were not that great, but she continued to buy pastels, oils, canvases, and really kept encouraging me. Every birthday and holiday I could count on my big sis to buy me art supplies!!I remember when I was 11 or 12, when she bought a new house she said, “ok kid, here are these art supplies, now make something for my walls!” So, the first thing I drew in pastels for her was Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which she immediately had framed and hung on her new walls and it hangs there still today. She bought art how-to books and I studied them intensely, then I moved on to painting the ocean in oils for her. As I got older I would sit for hours studying flowers and trees the curve of every petal from a flower is absolutely fascinating for me, the way the colours flow into one another perfectly while all still being individually unique. I would study the bark of trees and soon realized how different their patterns are. It always comes back to

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nature for me!As I got older I would take pictures of relatives and merge them together into a collage of portraits. Then one day another woman incidentally by the name of Robin, moved in next door to me, she painted and fashioned these kick ass faeries out of clay. She was the one who inspired me to start painting with acrylics because of the speed for which they dry and acrylics sing for me. She also inspired me to create the things I saw in my head and exploring the faery who have always been in there that was it for me! I started studying other fantasy artist’s characters and was soon begun developing my own style. My education was books and watching others until I was confident enough to create my very own world.

4. Have you ever had any art training of any sort? Or did you teach yourself?

Does the School of Hard Knocks count? No formal art training, completely self-taught.

5. I think it does count. If you could not create art, what would you do instead to harness your creativity?

Great question! Let me first say, if I could not create they may as well lock me up and throw away the key! My brain never shuts up! I always have some creation-planning going on in there.Three years ago, I taught myself to sew so now I also sew much of my own clothing. Matter of fact I am working on a couple of designs based on Edwardian era clothing, with a modern twist if you will. I cannot really elaborate on it because I am still in the sketch and figuring it out phase. Another one of those things that is floating around in my head that I have to get out or I will lose my mind! I tend to jump back and forth between sewing, paintings, and every now and again I play around with clay creating little goddess statues and green man wall hangings.Another creative outlet for me has always been gardening. This year it was so hot and humid here in the Deep South, I rather neglected my garden. It is rather pitiful right now. When it cools off, later this month, I will start loading all the tropical plants in my greenhouse and cleaning out the pathetic beds, getting them ready for next spring.It has been suggested to me that I need to start

blogging about my art and sewing by my friends. My thoughts have been, when am I going to have time?6. If your not doing anything creative, what is your other kind of way of relaxing?

Meditation!! I meditate for 30 minutes after I get up in the morning and often it is the only way to quiet my mind and body to get what little sleep I do get. Mornings are my quiet time. Other than that I don’t really relax much. I might look like I am relaxed or relaxing but I’m not. My brain is steady grinding, working out the next piece, imagining colours, and how the light would look when it falls from a certain angle. I guess relaxing is next to impossible for me! It always has been.I always have grand intentions of doing other things to help myself relax, going for walks, going to the gym, but creating takes front and centre on everything else. I don’t think I could or would have it any other way.

It has been a real pleasure catching up with you and getting to know the artist behind the beautiful and enchanting paintings. I hope your creative journey continues and we get to see lots more of your work.

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MELISSA MCDOUGALL

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Portraiture is a tough gig to crack, adding your own style to the portraits is something you can only do when you have mastered the rules of portrait painting. Melissa Mcdougall has a refreshing style that is steeped with an uncanny nostalgia. When you see one of her pieces you are instantly taken back to a time that might have once existed. If Ballard’s 1970’s novels where a document of reality and not just an act of fiction you might just be looking at photographs from that time. It is a coincidence that Melissa was born in the 70’s when her paintings hold such a style that reminds us of that era, the colour pallet she has used has bleak subtle tones of colours that could be bright and pop but yet they are not. By all means she has not used a boring pallet, nor has she created dark and gloomy images, yet her choice of reduced hue and lack of the primary colours with in her work gives it a style that resembles the quality of the photographs you might pick up from your local one hour processing shop down a brutalist designed high-street in a concrete northern British town. Her paintings remind us of a time where austerity was harsh and job cuts where plenty (ironic really as history has repeated itself today) yet the glare from the subjects eyes give you a sense of hope in the despair that hides behind them. There is a juxtaposition of the exotic in each piece, an import of new zeland that has been invited into your eye site by the little hints of her native wild life that you find hiding in less than obvious places in each painting. You see them, heck you cant miss them as they often surround the figure yet even though you feel familiar with them you cant help but realise that they are not from your home green. The figures themselves are built up with flat colours, simple yet so alive. They each have this enchanting glaze that draws you into what seems to be a broken beauty. You can’t help but wonder what their eyes have witnessed, their stories and how they came to be in this scene. The way Melissa has painted them makes you want to view them forever, never taking your eyesight from theirs.

We spoke to Melissa and she shared with us her creative journey, maybe it will give you an insight into where these ladies came from.

“I was born in the deep south of Dunedin, NZ-a place known for Robbie Burns poetry and gothic sensibilities, in 1971. My parents were 19 and 21 when they had me. My Dad was a drummer in a metal band and is now an artist. My Mum was also an artist who worked and raised me by herself with little money and lots of love and endless art books (on the Surrealists, Christian Schad and German Fairy tales) and music. Mum took me to Perth, Australia in 1973-and I lived there until I was 31. I was taught drawing by my High School art teacher Mr Gray who was something of a father figure and had a positive effect on our whole class (many of us are still artists). I was educated at the University of Western Australia (1996-8) where I graduated with Honours in Art History and Architecture. I exhibited professionally from the age of 19 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary art, Lawrence Wilson Gallery and ArtPlace. From age 31 to 35 I lived in rural, snowy North Dakota and worked at the ND Museum as a museum guide. I lived in the land of taxidermy bears and well-armed Sherrifs -not far from Fargo (!) In 2003 my Mum died of cancer aged 50-so I decided to move to NZ to be close to my Nana. It was a difficult time and took a while to begin painting again. I moved to Wellington in 2004 and have been here 10 years and am now represented by The Artist Room in Dunedin! So I’ve come full circle. My work is in collections in Australia, America, NZ and Sweden. My film influences- Film Noir, Scorsese and Jane Campion, Deadwood. Artists I love- The Pre-Raphaelites, Max Ernst , Leonore Fini, Franz Xaver Winterthaler and John

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Singer Sargent. Writers I admire- William Blake, Paul Eduard, (Poet) Tennyson and Emily Bronte. Wuthering Heights is an inspiration of many of my paintings. My favourite musicians are PJ Harvey, Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave. OTHER BITS- I have thousands of books. Working in bookshops is treacherous like that! My Mum’s nickname for me when I was as a teenager was Fuchsia after the character from the Gormengast Trilogy (book by Mervyn Peake) who is thin and pale with dark hair and wears a red velvet dress. I currently work in an Elder Care Home where I help look after little old Ladies and Gents. It’s rewarding to connect with elders and very grounding. They are in their 80’s and 90’s have wonderful characters and teach so much about life. I have two kids and two cats and my husband Ray teaches Art History at University here in Wellington”.

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