Axíōma

From ancient Greek ἀξίωμα “what is thought fitting”. My September studio is imbued with the fragrance of this black bible book, the new testament with psalms from 1835. Some of the stained pages got detached over the decades. For me it's kind of hard to resist drawing on this old rag paper. That is actually an understatement, it's not just difficult but simply impossible.

I intuitively started painting a black heart on them and decided that this would perfectly fit the closed doors of my altar piece or Jesuit Matrix Premise. While working with paint and crayon I highlighted some words that drew my attention. Words like: punishment, weapons, heathen, power and also a few sentences like: "the godless heathen lurks on the righteous, trying to kill him" another interesting one: "the perpetrators will be extirpated together, towards the end of the infidels". What is thought fitting 185 years ago, wrapped in a music score and courageously sang by the community, preferably accompanied by organ tones and squeaky church benches.

Dio vede tutto - dio può tutto - dio ci ama*

The idea of the dark heart combined with the doors seemed excellent but on reflection led to the question: why do we unequivocally find a heart shaped hole in the door of the traditional outdoor toilet? It brought me to the blog of Swedish etymologists who pointed on the simplified depiction of an 180° rotated bum. There is something to say for this, but for me personally it reminds me of the Dutch artist Klaas Gubbels who I visited years ago in his atelier. He developed a heart theme throughout his wonderful oeuvre. starting in the early 1960's with sitting woman figures inspired by Willem de Kooning, via ensembles with pears on tables, resulting in numerous heart shaped coffeepots. My painted heart touches quite a different atmosphere as you can see.

To cut a long story short, my new piece took form. The spectacular firmament speckled with shining stars and planets, the hidden battery holder, the Jesuit Popes, the observer, the piece of driftwood, it all landed as intended. It was time to make my monthly video titled 'Axioma'.

Again I mixed in found footage, the highly speculative Star Fleet flying over Moscow, high altitude balloon footage claiming the absence of earth curvature and fragments of the astonishing work of amateur naturalist, inventor and pioneering filmmaker F. Percy Smith. Smith worked in the early days of film making, developing various micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action.

In a sense it feels like to be thrown back to the early years of the 20th century when people like Smith could experience the world as if confronted with a blank canvas. We live in a world where fundamental scientific theories appear to be build on quicksand, widely disputed as being part of dark social conditioning. Our media turned into entertainment vehicles competing for attention, alternative voices are censored. We need to make sense of it all by ourselves. I think "what is thought fitting" is desperately in need of some serious adjustments

*god sees everything - god can do anything - god loves us