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Seduced by Seduction
An exhibition of bold, erotic,
eye-catching oil paintings has Richard Diran, a 55-year-old San Franciscan, has a habit of going on a mission, getting completely side-tracked and returning with more than he intended, and often far more then he bargained for. He went to Japan to study Judo, came back with a black belt, a rack of new paintings, a degree in gangsterism and a wife. He then studied gemmology, disappeared into Burma and emerged with a book about vanishing tribes and a load of jewels. Being a hobo brings its own rewards. Diran is a resident of Bangkok, not very tall, and nobody’s fool. What is this exhibition about? It’s about seduction. That means to entice, to tempt, but can also be an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. For instance, the Danish writer Kierkargard said he was seduced by the shape of a woman’s ankle and felt he didn’t need anything more from the woman. It’s the perpetuation of a dream. It doesn’t need to be fulfilled. It’s an end in itself. It’s neither furtive nor predatory. And you never forget the one that got away. Seduction, if you like, is a love that’s in love with love, without ever having to be consummated. It’s love’s holy spark. In the show, there are eight canvases, and every one of them portrays a different element of seduction. Why do you like oil? Ah, lovely oil. For a start, it dries slowly. If you make a mistake, you can go back and correct it. Watercolour is unforgiving. If you’re a sculptor and you accidentally smash the nose off, there goes the statue. Oil paint can be built upon or subtracted from. I like oil because when it does finally dry, it’s permanent. All pigments of oil are based on minerals, such as yellow ochre, and vermilion red. Ultramarine blue was derived from ground lapis lazuli, which came over the middle eastern trade routes from Afghanistan to Italy. At the time of Michelangelo it was worth four times the price of gold. Discovering this little economical eureka, I headed for gemology. And since the source for the best rubies, sapphires, pearls and jade and some of the rarest stones from the world came from Burma, here I am. For Diran, art is a journey not a qualification. It’s a process of mastering as much of the craft as we can in the time allowed us, which means discipline. “I’m a morning painter,” he says. I’m at a canvas from eight till noon. I always draw before the idea hits the canvas. So the root of creativity is the line. Everything for me in art is either inside or outside the line. The line is the structure. It’s the beginning, and in the end, the line is obliterated. The boundaries between ‘this’ and ‘that’ dissolve, as the painting evolves. Then again, people will see things in my paintings that I have never noticed. The point being that your perceptions are not my perceptions. For instance, in the exhibition I have a painting called the Key of Desire, in which a woman holds a key up and licks it. Beside her is a lion playing a femur bone flute. For me, the Key of Desire was the key, as in to unlock the desire, while a musician friend asked me if the key of desire was the note that the lion was playing. Different eyes, different perceptions.” What kind of art and artists do you respect? I like paintings that tell a story. Jackson Pollack doesn’t do anything for me, but Valasquez and Raphael most certainly do. Their work has a message. They are realists. In the end, it’s not even the artist that’s important, it’s the work itself. For me, the artist should be the funnel for the myths and cultures of everyone. A way of remembering ourselves, our time, our history, and our unique vision of it, because every artist is a product of his own time. A visual chronicler. A storyteller. But the bottom line is, all the best creativity is based on mythology because it’s what we all have in common. Painting is different from photography in that a picture captures a moment of what is, while a painting begins with a blank canvas, and that every thing you put on it is a projection of your own mind, and creative fire. I could paint a bowl of fruit or a cocker spaniel, but I don’t. One, because it doesn’t tell a story, and two because it doesn’t disturb you – and art must disturb you. It has to jolt you. You have to grab the viewer’s attention immediately, or they will just walk away. Van Gogh knew how to grab it and hold it. He stripped the flesh off nature. He was a butcher. I mean that positively. He stripped the veneer off nature and it’s upsetting. And that was the whole point. There are plenty of artists out there who know how to shock for shock’s sake, but, if it doesn’t have any meaning or context, or it can’t reconnect us with our myths, it has no value. The unconscious affects the subconscious, so that the subconscious becomes consciousness. Are artists taught properly today? Is that important? Yes, it is. How can an artist have any credence or consequence unless he has been grounded in the fundamentals – the relationship between colours, texture, perspective? There are plenty of people out there who can draw a face. But it’s the face in front of them, it is not something they created, something out of their own imagination and placed on the blank canvas. The frustration comes when you see something in your mind but don’t have the ability to paint it. That’s the challenge. To learn the technique of drawing a hand, a face. How far do you want to go? How good are your powers of observation? I was lucky in my grounding. I was in the first graduating class of the Walt Disney College at the California Institute of Art where I was taught by illustrators, and the Italian master Carmello Di Simone. At the same time, I’m very impressed by some Thai artists and Silpakorn University is a great institution. It teaches the fundamentals. I’m also very moved by some Burmese artists, some of whom have to make their own brushes. Becoming an artist means learning to see again for the first time. The goal for me is to be able to convey reality as I perceive it, which means constant attention to the craft: to paint frost, or the transparency of glass. What happens to the colour of a wave. And then, there is fire. Try painting it sometime. It’s moving. Very difficult to capture.” Do you like to paint or do you need to paint? I need to paint. It’s like a diary, because every canvas reminds me of who and what I was at the time of the painting. I don’t particularly follow the art scene. It’s too much of a business. I am lucky in that I don’t have to paint to survive. Gemmology pays the rent. So, it’s true that I have regretted every painting I’ve ever sold. How would you describe your personality? Sometimes intense, other times laid back. I have no time for fools, no time for liars, no time for people who are self important. My father told me one thing: no matter how big the man, how small the man, you never look up to any body and you never look down at anybody, you always look straight across at them. And believe me, I’ve met all kinds of famous people. Some worthy, some ridiculous. Future projects? More mythology. It’s the blueprint of reality. Whether its Nordic, Greek, Persian or Chinese. They all encapture the human experience. Is there anything you want to get off your chest? Yes. It takes real guts to be an artist of any type. You have to have the courage to follow your own heart and instincts. And to believe in your vision. When you wake up in the morning you have to look at yourself in the mirror, and God help you if you’ve managed to talk yourself out of your own dreams. You’ve lost yourself, and become everyone else. Life is short, and if you don’t follow your dreams, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. “A Week of Seduction” will run for the whole of February at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, Maneeya Centre, Penthouse Floor, 518/5 Ploenchit Road. Tel: (02) 652 0580.
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Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 by Kurt T. Francis, except as noted otherwise. Materials by Christopher G. Moore, Dean Barrett, Richard K. Diran, Sonia Pressman Fuentes, and Hardy Stockmann are copyrighted © by those respective authors. All rights reserved. Please see the Copyright Notice for further information. Click here for our Privacy Statement Please direct all inquiries to mekhongkurt@bangkokatoz.com |
