African Justice.

Should art be political?
No.

Can art be political?
Yes.

How can art and politics fit together?
As propaganda (from Latin, to propogate)... by growing meaning, where the message is all important--message without argument.
As dissemination (from Latin, to seed)...by spreading information, where the message can be challenged.
As vision (from Latin, to see)...by showing ideas, where meaning works in harmony with symbols, where the message is transfused (like living blood).


Can the artist who draws the human body do so without touching body politics?
Perhaps.
But my art reaches out to touch, to paint the politics of the body, and the mind inside the physical.
Often, my art is political in two ways: it offers, through the body, a vision of the body politic, the dream that might be.

Homoerotic Museum.

Oberholster, Bravo, Simonson, McCarthy.

Andrej Koymasky and his lover, Matt Koymasky, have a big presence on the web. Andrej and Matt have an internet home about themselves and gay history. (This is in English, French and Italian). They also have The Homoerotic Museum which looks at gay art through time and space.

The Black male body does appear in this museum, but not greatly: that is the way of modern art. Though some famous paintings of the Black male form, by gay artists, do not appear in the Homoerotic museum, such as Philpot’s domestic portraits, in the UK, and Tchelitchew’s Black male study, in the USA, there are some fine examples by Bravo, McCarthy, Simonson and Oberholster. (Richard’s work, here, sadly, is the usual distasteful pornograpic view). Now, they have added 15 of my pictures, which makes me very happy, for now there is a room devoted to a Black gay artist that is all about Black male beauty. Thank you, for doing this, Andrej, and for your kind emails…and good luck with the future!

Orokie.

Double Horizon.

These words are taken from Orokie's cd rom of his art work:

Too often, yesterday, today, but not tomorrow, we have lived a double life with our private horizons concealed from the people we really love. So often our high-up has been lived on the down-low. The secrecy of it all fascinates the media-makers, not the pressures we live through and the difficulties we feel.
Too often, yesterday, we became the victims of power: were forced to live the fantasies of other men’s dreams. Too rarely, today, do we find empowerment: create an imagery that expresses our vision. Tomorrow, let us be something more than the past and enter the communities that mean the world to us.
Tomorrow, let my brothers not live through uncertainty. Permit them to come out from their closet of bushes and follow those facts that preserve their roots. AIDS is the shadow that haunts their bright blackness. Their isolation and ignorance are the wings of Izraili.

Orokie-Cezanne.

Artists sometimes like to play with traditions.

The results can often create humour, as well as shock.

This work is by Tony de Carlo who uses Mexican influences.

It shows the heterosexual world of Botticelli interpreted through a gay artist's eyes.

So, the Dance of Love becomes a Dance of Death.

This lastest painting by Orokie returns to Impressionism and Bacon.

The colour palette uses Cezanne's mediterranean blues.

The mercury figure dances in with tea and milk (ah, a typical Orokie joke!) as if he is a Matisse dancer.

And the two figures on the bed echo Bacon's style rather than any particular sexual painting (such as Two Figures, 1953).

The result is a naughty combination of wit and eroticism.

Nicely, the winged helmet of Hermes appears as a comment on the flight of orgasm.

Why I painted this latest piece.

There was kind of mystery in Saint-Ex missing plane.

I liked to read Saint-Ex's spirit in the words of his book: Le Petit Prince, at French Language lessons.

I list it as my favourite book.

The piece "See the Sea" was done after reading the last news. The small planet is empty. Le Petit Prince moved to the bottom of the Mediterranean sea...

"See The Sea."

'London, Mar 17 : For decades people have been wondering whether French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery's death during World War II was caused by the enemy or suicide. The mystery has now been solved by a German fighter ace who claims to have shot him down and who, ironically, loved reading his books. Horst Rippert, 88, also admits that if he had know it was de Saint-Exupery in the plane, he would never have shot him down even though he was the enemy. "If I had known that it was him, I would never have fired." Times on line quoted him, as saying. "You can stop searching - I was the one who shot down Saint-Exupery." '

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

Self-portrait

Thank you to those people that sent kindest greetings to Afriboy.com.

My spirit was warmed by them.

I have tried to answer them all, the many, but some were not clear to me. If I have missed some friend out please do let me know and let me have your words so that I can send you kindness back.

Out of the many emails, one came asking me to join a Portrait Blog. I thank that person, but I did not send a portrait.

A portrait is a special thing.

It is sacred, like a name.

It holds the lake of the eyes, and the rainfall of the lips ,and the temple, which is a dome of radiance and spirit.

This is my new self-portait, It is called "I am back".

Do tell what you think.

Feel loved,

Orokie.