Myrtle Von Dammitz III

view Myrtle's slideshow for Gathering Evidence 2003 below

 

un-self portrait

 

       Myrtle has, as always, been hiding this summer (a scopophbic scopophiliac)--she read and eavesdropped a great deal this summer and these works represent the distillation of that reading, of that eavesdropping--these works are part of the painterly discourse she is  generous enough to share with us, from time to time, about that reading, about that thinking. These paintings are a vision of the brilliant  theatricalizing amphitheatre of Myrtle's mind. Her morphing unconscious seems to absorb words, survey phrases, spy on conversations and, much to our chagrin, she thumps us with the "The Uncanny"--what Freud (following Schelling) defined as "the name for everything that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light." Myrtle's paintings are enucleations of the weird residents of the folds of her brain brought to life by words--her paintings bring to life the weird residents of the folds of our brains.

 Andy P. Antippas

 

 

New and Unsold Works

 

How to Wear a Hat

24x18
 

 

 

Marasa Dosa

14x11
 

 

 

You Had to Had Been There, Judge

24x18

 

 

 

Double Portrait

14x11

 

 

 

How to Wear Your Hat #3

24x18
 

 

 

Bird Marionette

14x11

 

 

 

To Sea In A Sieve

14x11

 

 

One Eyed Mongol

14x11
 

---

 

 

view Myrtle's slideshow for Gathering Evidence 2003 below

What has been forgotten since getting lost in the cranky tubercular anarchist's grocery store on the wrong side of the tracks, chosen as being lost is chosen, unwilling to relax in an Ozark paradise. Suddenly I had my own show to complete in four short months with no money and no desire. I rushed "home"... Looking back, now- it may look pretty but it's not all there and I'm afraid it may never be. As of this month- August, 2003- there is supposed to be another one. I'd rather be working in a grocery store....

The lesson of tuberculosis I gleaned from Thomas Bernhard's decision to go down the road to the "wrong" side of town transformed itself from a contraction of tuberculosis to a case of severe mental malnutrition. What you see here is a romanticized "forced sputum," produced through expectation (not expectoration). The sad thing is, these days there aren't any sanitariums.

myrtle