Artist's Thoughts
The most recent works of JohnnyWow! are an attempt to delineate an image of a personal paradise. The issue was brought into focus by the terrorist cults assurances to the martyrs of a paradise with 72 virgins. The notion of a paradise consisting of 72 permanently virginal and obediently compliant women sounds like an eternity of frustrated wet dreams. The bliss of endless angelic choruses seems to contain few of the elements of a heaven in today's world. One individual's paradise is another person's den of hedonism or austere prayer vigil.

In the time of the Biblical Eden, within the first few pages of Genesis, the story of Adam's sons, Cain and Abel, is told and this story is endlessly retold. But we are also told that the daughters of Eve were "married" to the Nephilim. The story rings of tribal bride bartering to establish alliances. There is no further mention of the distribution of the women, their fates, their adventures, or offspring.

If Adam and Eve were created, who were the Nephilim: these 'giants' and 'men of renown' lurking outside Eden? What prompted the sale of Eve's daughters to these distant unrelated tribesmen and how did they come to need wives? Was this polygamous, a mixing of races, or species? Why was it Eve's daughters and Adam's sons? What sort of paradise was Eden for the daughters of Eve - all of whom were absorbed and vanished without a trace along with the mighty and well established Nephilim? What kind of a God just didn't give a damn about what happened to the women?

What did the daughters of Eve look like? Conceived in enthusiastic but inexperienced ignorance, were they well formed, or misshapen and flawed experiments? And what did the Nephilim look like? Created and existing outside God's realm, were they perhaps related to the trolls and dwarves, to the Kraken of Norse legends? Were they the cast out and Fallen Angels?

There is a branch of speculation by Biblical apologists and theoreticians regarding the Nephilim as keepers of hidden knowledge. Contending that the Elamites and Analites defeated by Joshua were the Nephilim and that they had misplaced the sacred talismans and knowledge that had protected them. They were reduced to ghosts of the renowned giants of old, still large of stature but lacking power.

Are the beauties and media-bunnies on parade today related in any way to the daughters of Eve? The alluring, the provocative, the coy and seductive display of the Eden that surrounds us - are these Eve's daughters or Satan's seductresses? Vacant slack-jawed breeding stock or vivacious humanoid Manga pinups to please the gods?

Today we see thousands of images of people. The media presents nothing but images that vastly surpass our mere physical dreariness. We are endlessly presented with the cannibalism of what were once private and meaningful moments transformed into a public pornography of abstract idols.

In the time of the ancient Greeks a mirror was made of polished bronze and gave a murky reflection. We are so familiar with our own images from photographs and on reflective surfaces that it is difficult to imagine what a life may have been like without the constant reminder of how we look. A scholar of medieval trade routes estimated that a villager might perhaps see 500 people in a lifetime. For wandering tribes the image of humanity consisted of an amalgam of the thousand or so people that one might see in life. With no clear idea of personal appearance and a short and hard life to be lived, the opportunities for complex schemes of vanity were limited. But now a walk down a city street provides illustrations of current categories such as: Gutter Muffin, Goth Grrrl, Biker Babe, Blue Blood Bitch, Goddess Kali, Wingless Angel, Stoner Chick, Catwoman, Mystic Momma, Happy Hippy, Dessicated Romantic, Pudding Pants, Lipstick Lesbian, Leghumper, Naughty Schoolgirl, Fire Crotched Bad Doggie, Ani-Fashionista, Fleshapoid, Stable Widow, Bounty Hunter

There was a time, in the past, in which other people were readily recognizable, but one's own appearance would be unknown. You could recognize others but would be unable to recognize oneself, and the sense of self - who am I - would be formed by the response of others, not an image cultivated in private. Others would decorate your body and you in return would decorate their body to enhance, attract, detract, empower, but the emphasis is on the creating of power to deceive, not the power to avenge.

The contemporary flood of images has significantly changed the meaning of inhabiting a body. A body conceived from the random genetic experiment of our parents which was driven by the random genetic experiments of their parents, and this randomly assembled genetic structure cannot possibly measure up to the media standards of perfection. With enough cash or effort the body (the shell of meat) can be shaped and sculpted somewhat. This shell portrayed for commerce as uncannily vacant or mock-serious, an empty vessel to be defined by our imaginations as the image imitates a thought, the photographically charismatic warming and defining our aspirations. This avid and energetic trade in imagery produces "stars" that reflect back to us our own longings and dreams, creating more longings and dreams in a feedback loop. All around the image is the invisible support staff of lighting technicians, photographers, access agents, retouching programs that we lack in our lives as individuals. Any record of the agents of creation's presence is carefully edited from the image, yet their invisible activities make the perfect mirror image of our dreams possible to view as much as impossible to enact in our own lives.

The propelling force of commerce encourages a synchronicity of expression - suddenly all over the planet nubile females display their navels, or guys wear their baseball hats backwards. All of this carefully and cynically contrived to promote the rapid flow of capital. Since everything purchased is transitory and thus soon to be garbage, there can be no lasting definition of beauty. A vast industry defining and permeating a culture, but an industry of images that attract attention, and does not reward scrutiny, makes no actual demands aside from whetting an appetite that can not be satiated.

Johnny Wow feels that this internal/external alignment is particularly poignant in women. Most of the media imagery is aimed directly at young women. All the emphasis is upon the external, while who knows what is within the public mask of seduction and desire. How little of the internal is on view - dimly projected in a glance, a gesture, a moment off-guard. The outer shell of cosmetic enhancement and stylish accoutrements is often as opaque in meaning as the Burka clad virgins of paradise.

To some the uniform of imagery is protective coloring, changing with the season like a ptarmigan. For others, rock stars and the more extroverted or manipulative, the body becomes a palette for the declaration of self. The creation of imagery to enable behavior, to attract attention, to create separation, to intimidate, to attract, to create distance, to imply a more complex inner being.

The paintings and drawings are an attempt to capture a hint of the interior. By shattering the exterior through collage and the brisk energetic dance of the brush, the body, the image and the mind create through the chaos and exposure of primal roots as the self is re-created. A shattered mirror reflects many images, one of which may be the truth. The more random the movement, the truer to the spirit. The less real becomes more true by obscuring the literal (like a bronze mirror). The seemingly casual reveals the immutable: catching a glance of another daughter of Eve as the marriage is announced.
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