Click on the part of the Artwork to be taken to explanation.
Paradise of inhibition 234,6
1.
.The portrait in the top left is that of a man with Bell's palsy. He has complete right facial palsy, when he tries to shut his eyes, the eyes roll up and the eyelids do not close.
2.
.The picture on the bottom left is that of Saint Jerome and the lion. It is a copy of a stained glass window from the cathedral of St. Peter on Likoma island on lake Malawi.
3.
. The main image is that of an eight year old boy who is severely mentally deficient.
4.
.The Arabic calligraphy on the top right means paradise by al-Qandusi and I used it to illustrate the relative concept of paradise and heaven and how it fluctuates according to the observer.
5.
.The armharic letters is a direct translation of the word: IMPOSTOR
6.
.The image on the right is that of Jesus dying in the arms of the virgin mary also known as Pieta. It is a copy from a 1440 AD. woodcut.
7.
.The writing at the bottom left is a description of Dr. Harold Shipman who was the most prolific serial killer of all time and a medical doctor.He killed hundreds of people before being caught. He committed suicide and never confessed in an act to retain complete control right to the end. (The words read: He was pleasant to get along with and good with the patients)
8.
.The writing on the bottom right is the eleventh law from the code hammurabi from the 1700 B.C. This particular law has to do with someone accusing someone else of theft without bringing witnesses and it exposes the absolute tyrannical control that king Hammurabi had over life and death. (The words read: 11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is an evil-doer, he has traduced and shall be put to death)
In this series of Artworks I have played around with the aesthetics of the macabre.My main concern was to illustrate how absurd reality has been in the past.In the future when we take our own reality out of context, things will also seem absurd, even the everyday normal things. I have tried to show how normal the absurd is , when I started this project I was struck by the absurdity of all the images depicted but being subjected to them for a long period of time they have become my norm .So one could say that I have been conditioned and desensitized.
