Drawn

I had an all-day meeting this week, and I'm still alive! It's probably my greatest triumph. You never know what you can do if you put your mind to something. If you put your mind to paper, you can cover it in brain smears! Yeah!

The most important thing to come out of the meeting was a whole page of doodles. As you might remember from previous entries, I'm quite the artist when bored and confined. Mostly, I've just done a few isolated pieces, but this week's meeting generated this:

It's my Guernica.

It's tough to complete art of this scale in what's supposed to be a work event. So how did I do it without anyone noticing?

I didn't. Everyone noticed. They just didn't care, and neither did I.

Let's have a look at some of the individual elements.

Not much up here. Spider-Man's head (I can't do his body), a man with a moustache, a weird squiggle that might be a face, a strange lantern-like shape.

This is a very interesting section. You'll notice a lot of mixed iconography: constellations, religious symbols, a witch's hat/traffic cone, and even a couple of extra faces. The lines and circles suggest a birthday party. They do.

The piece is dominated by this creature. It has the tail of a lion, the head of a... lizard(?) and appears to have shaved its legs some time ago. This really speaks to our primordial past, saying "Hey! Primordial Past! What's with the spikes and that?".

An odd sideways geometric face, a trident and some kind of cannister. Then there's a coat of arms, displaying these words:

OPINION
OBLIVION

That's my family motto. But, similarly, might it also perhaps not be maybe?

Two not disturbing faces that are crying!

This is probably my favourite section. This woman is wearing culottes with stripes on them, and has whips for hands. I think they are crackling with electricity. But look at her face! With so few lines, at such a small scale, I've really captured her personality. She's cheeky, but with an underlying sadness. Possibly because of her terrible haircut.

 

Not much of interest here. A ballroom dancer with a weird crossed-out face, an angry, ugly man, and a shining machete. The white boxes are where I've censored my only actual work-related notes. I wouldn't want to give away any of our company secrets.

Oh, I forgot to censor that one. Never mind, it doesn't make any sense.

This one's hard to see, but I think it's a stylised castle on a hill (in the bottom right-hand corner), and a sun with large rays. One of the rays goes up to meet the ballroom dancer's dress with pleasing symmetry.

Finally, there's this guy. He's wearing some kind of robe, and has a halo. He's probably a monk. Also, he has a weird lip/moustache thing going on, like a holy catfish.

So.

What have we learned?

The world is a place of complexity and wonder. Nature, spirituality, violence, electric whips and geometry form the soup we call reality. The line between emotion and mathematics is blurred; anger and grief are everywhere.

The monk looks at the ballroom dancer. What does he see? A secular, unknowable beauty? A demon in sheep's clothing? Is oblivion the only valid opinion? Does Poseidon rule the oceans, or are they filled with dinosaurs?

Why didn't I include that weird devil/fox face on the right-hand side in my analysis? Do I have something to hide?

I'm not here to offer answers. That is not the duty of the artist. Our job is to merely show people the universe and say THIS IS ME. THIS IS YOU. WE ARE A TRILLION SPIDER-MEN SPINNING A SINGLE WEB. DARE YOU GAZE INTO YOUR OWN SOUL?

Then nod and leave the room. The canvas will soak up the fluids we have brought forth.

It's a good thing scanners exist, or this work might have been confined to the page. Now it will live forever.

...

My God. It really will.