The Oracle Series: An Introduction.

I recently wrote how I enjoy writing personal essays but don’t think they’re good enough to share because they’re too personal. I feel the same way about this introduction. There should be a level of detachment, at least that’s how I’ve been taught to write such things. 

I should introduce the premise of this work without injecting unnecessary personal information, even if doing so feels like turning my back on myself. I shouldn’t write about how I’ve been feeling overwhelmingly anxious for the past four days, how I can’t stop my heart from pounding and how it’s almost as though my body thinks it’s dying. But I want to, because as I’m typing this, this is how I’m feeling. And even if I don’t want that to affect this, I can’t deny that it probably will and is. More than that, I want it to. This is a reflection of a moment, not a denial of it.

Creating art is one thing, talking about art, articulately and clearly, it’s process, it’s meaning, it’s purpose, is another. I read this article, okay, I read half this article, about why artists struggle to talk about their work. From what I read, it’s not so much that artists struggle to talk about their work; it’s that they talk too much about the ideas behind the work and not the reality of the work. If that made any sense as a sentence. 

It got me thinking, how would I talk about this project? Seriously? The last time someone asked me, “What kind of work do you do?” My genuine answer was “Weird stuff.” Because, a: I wanted the conversation to be over, it was a sneak attack, I wasn’t prepared for it, and b: I didn’t have the words to explain it articulately and clearly in the short time available. I didn’t want to get carried off into the Wonderland of the ideas of my work and keep him there bored and wondering what the hell I’m on about for hours, because I know how annoying that is. I wanted to be clear, precise, intelligible. Yeah, I know, I nailed it.

So, what have I been working on? What is ‘The Oracle Series’ and why should you be collecting them? Well, let’s talk about the ideas behind it for an hour. You’ve got nothing better to do, right? Of course you haven’t, you’re reading this. I know, I’m not funny.

Let’s get into this.

‘Beltane’ 2014

This ten minute drip painting was the first of many to come, not that I knew that at the time. For some reason, I don’t know the reason so don’t ask, Beltane is my favourite Wiccan sabbat. And every year, apart from this year because I was ill, I create a Beltane painting. 

I associate Beltane with the story of Mary Magdalene so this painting is of Mary Magdalene emerging from the darkness of the void, of the eternal, dripping, manifesting herself into this reality. She’s featureless because she’s formless, she’s whatever we project upon her, whatever we make her out to be, whatever story we tell enough times, and because her story hasn’t been fully told yet, she’s incomplete.

I pretty much fell head over heels in love with this painting. But it was just a ten minute sketch, essentially, on really bad quality paper, I could do better, the idea deserved better. This stayed in the back of my mind until eventually I was like, yeah, I’m gonna do it again, only better.

‘Qualia – The Isolationist’, Nov 2019

With ‘Qualia’, I wanted to capture a supreme being emerging from the void and forcing herself into this reality, creating herself as she pours herself into this world. But I still wasn’t happy with it.

‘Mama Brighid – The Isolationist’, Feb 2020

In this painting, she’s not just creating herself, she’s creating the world as she creates herself. Flowers fall from her mouth and are seeded in this reality. As she emerges out of darkness she brings stars and light with her. She holds an acorn shaped like an egg, the potential for creation. The butterfly fertilises the egg, a representation of her counterpart. If she’s creation, her counterpart is death, destruction, change, metamorphosis.

I thought I would stop here, but I didn’t.

‘Tutu Pele’, Jul 2020‘Persephone Opens’, Dec 2020‘Ereshkigal Descending’, Oct 2020

It wasn’t until ‘Tutu Pele’ that I kind of got a better idea of what I was doing. With this one I had an image of one of those classical marble statues, and underneath that, not quite erased yet, was the true goddess. Despite this revelation, it wasn’t until ‘Persephone Opens’ that I started calling them Void Paintings and everything started coming together.

So, let me explain what I’ve actually been doing.

“The ‘neutral’ body was always unmarked, white and masculine.” – D. Haraway.

What are Void Paintings? It’s the idea of the neutral body. It’s an idea that crept into the subconscious from classical marble statues. This is neutral, this is what everyone can, should relate to. This is the ideal, this is the standard. 

The natural erosion and deliberate suppression of polychromy has led to a misreading of history and beauty standards. These statues were never meant to be perceived as white, and our idea of perfection now, is not what was considered perfection back then.

One of my favourite artists is Marc Quinn because he plays with this so beautifully, and looking at my work I see his influence, kind of. 

What I’ve been doing is taking ‘classical’ portraits of a deity and stripping them, whitewashing them as we’ve done our history. Leaving them blank so that we can project anything we want on to them, rewrite their stories for ourselves.

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” – Cesar A. Cruz.

The voidness, the featurelessness I’ve always found pretty comforting, pretty neutral, until recently. I don’t know what it was, something had happened and I wanted to see a friendly face. Instead, I turned around and was confronted by one of my faceless portraits and seeing nothing reflected back at me, was for a moment, incredibly unnerving. It made me realise how much I look for reflection in others’ faces.

Does any of this explain what void paintings are, or what I’m trying to do? If so, can I condense this into one simple sentence for the next person who asks me, “So, what kind of work do you do?”

“… I realised how powerfully sensuality and lust are aroused by flesh that is only partly revealed.” – ‘Venus in Furs’, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

Have you ever seen any of Connie Imoden’s photography? Just a little side note. I see her influence in this work too, and in a lot of my earlier life-drawings. Such as this piece from 2007? 2006? How old am I? Wow.

Her photography plays with darkness, reflection and light, usually only revealing parts of the body. There’s this one piece in particular that I love, it’s like a being forming themselves out of darkness. She’s captured a moment where this being is for that split second, only a hand and a ribbon of flesh. It’s not yet solidified itself into this reality, it’s not yet whole. It’s like a ghost, almost seen. Something that is only partially revealed is the same as a partially revealed secret, you want to know more. But it’s the things that aren’t there, as well as the things that are, that form the story in our heads.

“So, what sort of work do you do?”

“I’m so glad you asked. I’m currently working on something called The Oracle Series. It consists of featureless portraits of archetypes, I call them void paintings. It’s a commentary on whitewashing our history and how that’s affected our standards of godliness, perfection and beauty.”

That sounds so pretentious, I’m going back to my original answer. “Weird stuff.”

Issara Simone, Saturday 8th of May, 2021.

The Oracle Series: A collection of void paintings coming soon to https://society6.com/issara_simone Can you collect them all?

In the meantime, some of the art seen here is available for sale, check that out.

Also, I have a book, you should get it, I think I did alright. It’s available on Amazon and stuff.

‘The Murder of Miss O’