Journal Pages from Europe - Vincent's Legacy

Journal entry from European trip 

"It's rained all morning. I'm sitting in this small cafe in Auvers-Sur-Oise and I'm struggling on all sorts of different levels. I'm struggling because of what I've seen this morning. The grave and wheat fields. When you see such an icon, shooting star, giant, reduced to a simple headstone and ivy slab, against some back wall in a remote countryside cemetery, you have to wonder what it's all about.

Even if you make your mark in this lifetime, what does it matter when we all return as dust?

Legacies. Is life really about legacies? What we leave behind.

Songs have been written about this man. Books espouse his tortured brilliance. Pilgrims pay homage to this spot and place small rocks on top of his headstone. We all love Vincent.  Maybe at some very deep level we wish we were like him in some way. His unquenchable need to create and vibrant passion, his selfless compassion for others, his wonderfully enquiring intellect and eloquent way with words, and his ability to live life to the fullest.

These thoughts inspired "Mediocrity or Passion?"

Mediocrity Or Passion?’ (114.5 x 76.5cm) Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on Paper

A train ride, an hour north of Paris, is a small village called Auvers-Sur-Oise. Vincent spent his final years there. I walked the quiet streets, and found his paintings frozen in the buildings and countryside.

On a hill behind the town was the cemetery. The street sign that pointed to it read, “Les tombes de Theo et Vincent”. Someone had scrawled “Carpe Diem” across it. Eloquent graffiti. 

Rimmed by a high stone wall, the cemetery bore the remnants of those who had given this town its character over many hundreds of years. Against the back wall of the cemetery, stood two small head stones, side by side, barely waste high and sharing one plot. One read, 

ICI Repose

Vincent Van Gogh

1853-1890.

That’s all that was written. Beside him his brother Theo. It was an unkempt raised square of thick green ivy. I sat on a tree stump at the foot of his grave in the soft rain. This simple site understated his suffering and beauty. Belied his magnificence in the world. 

Outside the cemetery walls, were wheat fields. I saw a small monument on one of the tracks criss-crossing the field. At this point Vincent had painted, “Crows over a Wheat field”. The last painting he completed just before he took his life. I looked at the ground below my feet and realised his blood was spilt in this very earth. At my feet was a rock, curiously stained crimson in the morning rain.

I was deeply moved by this day and that night wrote in my journal, 
“My Vincent dilemma; to live a prolonged life of mediocrity, or a short life of passion?”

Journal Pages from Europe

A page from the journal I kept on my journey around Europe. 

From this second storey window above Rue Richer, I observed Paris. There was an old man who sat opposite in the entrance to the Passage Verdeau. Each day he arrived at 8.00am and left at 7.00pm, and in a quiet and deeply respectful manner, accepted the loose coins of passerbys. He was to engage me in a way that I hadn't expected. 

‘Meeting Gerard’ (114.5 x 76.5 cm) Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on Paper

Struggling, I went to the subterranean bookshop at the Louvre, looking for some artistic nourishment.

Hidden away on the shelves in the back corner, was one particular book. A hard covered catalogue of recent works by a French painter, Gerard Garouste. A million books and I stumbled across this one, or it found me.

His paintings resonated and shared a sensibility akin to my work. Stories about his life, constructed with pathos and humour, and a keen eye for subtle and intriguing distortions. Work that endeavoured to make sense of all that had gone before.

It was to be profound.

Later that night in my room above Rue Richer. Isolation like never before.

“I Watch The Time, For What It's Worth” (114.5 x 76.5cm) Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on Paper

Back at the hotel, 

my small room had a television with the time displayed on the bottom corner. As the numbers rolled over, I calculated her celestial movements back around the earth, until the moment she landed.

Movie Moments (Time To Leave) (114.5cm x 76.5cm) Charcoal, Pastel and Graphite on Paper

Finally it was time for her to leave.

It was midday when Wendy disappeared up the futuristic glass tunnels of the Aeroport Charles De Gaulle. Heart-wrenching, tear-jerker moments like these were only to be experienced in movies.

I stoically turned and walked off into Paris. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of being alone, immense isolation. 

"The Parisian Story" (114.5 x 76.5cm) Charcoal, Pencil, Graphite on Paper

“A girl slouched by outside the glass, hooking my attention as surely as if she’d grabbed my lapels. With her bruised indigo eyes, pale flesh, crumpled jeans and bulky sweater, she might have been the younger sister of the singer Juliette Greco, Existentialism's poster girl, who, ravishing in bare feet, matador pants and a droopy black pullover, posed for a famous photograph 40 years ago on the cobbles of the square outside. 

This girl’s long white fingers clamped the point of a folded pyramid of white paper, inside which, any Parisian could have told you, nestled two warm croissants au beurre. They’d have known with equal certainty, from her sullen look and uncombed hair, that she wore neither pants nor bra.

Single handedly she constituted an entire Parisian story...”

‘At Peace With Paris’

John Baxter

"L'adoration" (116cm x 200cm) Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on Paper

An afternoon in the Pompidou Centre, wandering around the 20th century works, and I stumbled upon Picabia's "L'adoration du veau" (Adoration to Veal). Why is it that some works just grab you by the throat and shake? His painting has nothing to do with virgins or saints, but features a clutch of reaching hands grabbing for an austere and disinterested bovine. It hooked me. I loved it.

Double click on it and look carefully. You will find references to the Brisbane floods, the death of my beautiful dog that week, and an inventory of all the CDs I played that subliminally influenced the work as I ventured into it. And then there's the frustration and adoration.

A work this size takes me about 3 weeks to complete (9 days of 8 hours each day) Toward the latter stages, a great deal of that time is sitting in a large chair and studying it, fine tuning, pushing and pulling, lightening and darkening, enhancing 3D. And then at some moment, it just works!

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out | Video on TED.com

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out | Video on TED.com

Just every now and then, someone in the world of art moves me to spontaneous tears. Their cleverness, their passion, their vision challenges. I become quite introspective about my own work, and question my inventiveness and the degree I have to go to to get noticed / make an impact.

This is 24 minutes of one man's joyous vision, beautiful images and romantic dialect, as he endeavours to change the world through Art. 

Enjoy and respond!