n this, my favourite subject, or genre, it is my ambition to find ways of painting the nude more beautifully than it has ever been painted before, or at the very least as beautifully, and in poses rarely if ever seen before. Although I love and work with traditional subjects, nothing would please me less, in no matter how flawless a technique, than simply doing what has been done before. While I enjoy the male nude, it is the female body that most excites and pleases me, and fills me with an awe that makes me love to paint it more than anything else, in the hope that I just might one day be able to communicate my joy in looking at - and seeing - one of God�s most amazing successes.
While I don�t mean or want to use this space as a political forum, nevertheless I feel obliged at this point to mention the subject of "Erotic Art," as that and the nude almost inevitably overlap, especially in my case, as I consider myself, like Hans Bellmer for instance, an Erotic Surrealist. ( And talking of Hans Bellmer, in spite of his being a vastly superior draughtsman and, in my opinion, superior artist, to either Picasso or Dali, in spite of a huge retrospective exhibition at the Grande Palais in 1966, he is still far from "known," his explicitly sexual compositions being too much for many people to accept. They would rather have the meaningless daubs or gimmicks of P or D than direct sexuality, no matter how brilliantly rendered. My resolution not to turn this space into a discussion forum prevents me from expounding much further; there are countless marvellous books on the subject anyway, all saying what I would say myself, mainly that it is sex and not war or financial shenanikins that keeps this world of ours turning, so surely it should be celebrated in Art, along with its blessed partner, Love.)
The strange thing is that sex seems to be considered acceptable in the cinema - how many movies can you see today without a couple - and often a very famous couple - cavorting right under your nose, like it or not? - and in literature, but not in the visual arts, regardless, as I have said, of quality. Due to my long-standing friendship with probably the greatest collector of Erotic Art in the world who lives in Paris, I have been able to study the genre to the point where I consider myself extremely knowledgeable on the subject. I have since collected it, produced it, lectured on it and written hundreds of thousands of words on it. Why does it inspire such passion in me? Because I am simply unable to understand how it is even possible that intelligent human beings can be offended by images reflecting the very thing that perpetrates their race.
If one studies Art History - and, in all modesty, no one could have studied it in all it�s aspects more than I - one would discover pretty quickly that artists have been deeply concerned with erotic art since the beginning of time. Primitive man felt free to express it, but slowly, as "sophistication" took over the world - or as religion took it over - we lost the ability to celebrate our origins. Many were even bullied into believing it was sinful. Sex, being as important as it is - essential! - is very powerful; the Church realised that, and feeling that they could only control people absolutely, as they wished to do, they had to steer them away from it. So they made it "sinful" and unbelievably, although everyone went round "doing it" as much as ever, now they had to feel guilty about it instead of just enjoying it. Thank Heavens the twentieth century did arrive and many people did manage to liberate themselves. But only to a degree; still Erotic Art is sold only "under the counter" and not shown in any museums, in spite of my having seen, in my friend�s collection alone, countless works that exceed in beauty anything that can be seen in any museum. Because I believe in Life and Love, I believe Erotic Art to be one of the most powerful and beautiful forms of Art.
However, not only do I not want to use this space for discussion, neither do I want to use it. to educate or shock anyone. I want only to show the range of my work for the first time, in the hope that it will cause pleasure; and in the further hope of finding interested collectors or patrons, and possibly a publisher. And so I decided not to show any of the more explicitly erotic works I have created, a difficult decision as I have had a burning ambition for years to try and create erotic woks of such beauty that the viewer will be so dazzled by the beauty he or she will have no time left to be shocked, by something I consider to be totally unshocking anyway. The main reason for my decision is children. I hope many children will find their way to my website and be inspired by it, so I wouldn�t like to do anything that would cause their parents to prevent that from happening. A last comment I feel I must make on that subject, is that I have five children, ranging from 24 to 10 years old, 3 boys and 2 girls. They are all unusually intelligent, sensitive and conscious people, and all have been brought up absolutely surrounded by erotic art. If it has had any effect on them at all it is definitely only a positive one. Although of course not against parental discretion, I am passionately against censorship, especially when it is as ludicrous as it is in Britain, where absolutely anything can be written, right next to the most explicit picture, but there has to be a tiny star over the "point of contact," be it tongue, finger or penis. You are even allowed to see the length of penis, just not the very tip that might have just entered the vagina. To comprehend anything like that is, I�m afraid, beyond me, and if I can use my Art in any way to bring an end to such ludicrous, hypocritical behaviour I would be delighted.
That having been said, in the meantime I am constantly searching for ways of depicting the nude that go beyond what has been seen thus far, but that still falls within the universally acceptable. I have already painted several classical nudes, none more beautiful than "Backview Lying Nude," but I feel the artistic need to go a long way beyond that. The reason the subject of Erotic Art even came up was that I consider men and women to be at their most beautiful when making love. In a state of pleasure and totally without inhibition, they use their bodies in a much more graceful, natural and flowing manner, in an almost balletic freedom of movement, than in any other activity. Anyway, I sincerely hope no one will be offended by anything they find on this Website, which is intended only to cause them a pleasure almost equal to that which I, the artist, have experienced in their creation.
