Tim Parish: Visual Art
Paintings and Illustrations by Tim Parish on Undergrowth.org'Energy = Spirit' painting
"Energy = Spirit"
by Tim Parish
oil on canvas
2009
"science doubts
religion believes
but who knows?"
(based on the sketch of the same name).
Capitalist Christmas
I'mmm dream-ing of aaa caaapitalist christmaaaasssss.... collage by Tim Parish cut'n'paste from The Australian 'Money' supplement, December 2001Cosmic Serpent
Some see knowledge as the original sin, others see it as the original son of God. The serpent who speaks the language of DNA knows what it means to be both devil and god, because we have given both those mantles. We humans, who have the potential to be gods, but most often end up acting like devils. It is so much easier to blame something else. 'cosmic serpent' by tim parish pencil illustration, feb 2007Earthling forgets
"Earthling Forgets" illustration by Tim Parish, 2004energy = spirit
Fucking Televisions
"Fucking Televisions", 1998 I drew this picture when I first heard about the Adbusters campaign "Turn Off the TV".Originally published in my first zine Verb #0 in 1999.Glossilalia
'Glossilalia', 1999 - oil painting by Tim Parish.heaven and earth
human clothes
In These Days of Machines
"In These Days Of Machines" illustration by Tim Parish Words by Claire WrenJoin Now
"Join Now" professional design work for the Trancend Corporation, "Join The Simulacrum" campaign. verb studios, 2004objects
objects..Oceania
'Oceania' painting by Tim Parish exhibited in 'Spoonerisms' exhibition, Lentil As Afrika, August 2006Psychopomp > by Tim Parish
"Psychopomp" illustration Tim Parish11/07 Fujiyama, Japan
"The "Psychopomp" according to the Oxford Dictionary is "a conductor of souls to the place of the dead". Throughout history, cultures and belief systems, the Psychopomp has appeared in diverse forms to Open the Way to this greatest of mysteries: Death. And no form has more impressed upon the eye than that of the Wild Dog, the Wolf and the Jackal." - from the Psychopomp Dictionary
random molecules
a map of the universe painted Darwin, dry season 2001self portrait whilst tripping
"Self Portrait Whilst Tripping" painting by Tim Parish 2002 not necessarily painted at the time... more a reflective vision of how i was feeling.Speech Bubbles
"Speech Bubbles" by Tim Parish oil on wood december 2004Swept Along
Swept Along (2001) by Tim ParishTempest
'Tempest' Oil painting by Tim Parish inspired by the monsoons of Darwin in January 2005. Exhibited in the Melbourne Environmental Art Festival 2005The Clockless Nowever
'The Clockless Nowever' collage by Tim Parish 2005The Cosmic Serpent
'Cosmic Serpent'
ink and gold paint
Japan, 2007
from the exhibition 'Visions of MU'
This piece was inspired by the book 'The Cosmic Serpent' by Jeremy Narby, inwhich he explores the universal myth of the serpent throughout cultures all over the world as a being which guards knowledge. While in Japan this concept resonated particularly strong as I would visit Buddhist temples with enormous and beautiful murals of serpent like dragons painted above meditation halls as a kind of gatekeeper to the deeper realms of insight. It was as if the danger and fear created by the image of the dragon were merely a test of one's courage to surpass these obstacles to gain greater insight.
-Tim
The Night Doctors > by Tim Parish
'The Night Doctors'
by Tim Parish
ink on paper
Japan, 2008
from the exhibition 'Visions of Mu'.
Somewhere between midnight and dawn, in a small room on the border of Thailand and Laos my friend Cassandra told me about a vision she had had in the Amazonian jungle a few months earlier.
'I felt as if all the creatures of the forest, the insects, the snakes, the creatures of the night were surrounding me and ripping my body to pieces" she told me matterof factly. "It wasn't painful, but there was no escaping the fact that my body had been torn to shreds and I had to confront the reality that I was no longer alive..." - and that was only the beginning of her eight hour long Ayahuasca journey.
The image of a churning, infested darkness from which the soul was pulled into a vision of the afterlife remained in my mind quite clearly. I later learnt from the writings of my friend and colleague Rak Razam that this was a common vision, and the the shamans of the Amazon even gave name to these creatures as the 'night doctors'. Ayahuasca is a healing medicine utilised by the witch doctors of the Amazon for thousands of years, and the visionary insight which it gifts is one that is said to trascend the physical world, and in doing so, the mortal coil. I realised that these 'doctors' of the night, which come to deliver the soul from it's psychic attachment to the body are therefore part of the journey beyond fear and toward the dissolution of the ego that accompanies the apparent near death experience and subsequent dissolution of the ego which people often seem to undergo. I became to conceive of them not so much as demons or nightmarish creatures then, but as gatekeepers of a certain realm through which we must pass in this state in order to let go of the trappings of the material world.
It was not until I after had experienced the plant myself whilst travelling in Japan many months later that the visions I had been told of materialised in the form of this painting. Although I didn't experience the same destruction of my body, there was an intricacy to the visions which seemed to communicate a different kind of language to me. A visual language that spoke directly to my soul and transformed some part of my own way of seeing. Also, the process of journeying through the darkness of my own fears made sense and was perhaps expected as I had been forewarned of it in advance by my fellow travellers.In Christian theology, people speak of 'the dark night of the soul' which precedes illumination and I feel that this shamanic journey could equate with that concept also. Upon returning I was inspired to communicate my visions into visual language and this painting was one of the pieces that I created.
That is the story behind this painting.
-Tim
The Theory of Love
"The Theory Of Love" by Tim Parish May 2006, oil on canvas. I originally came up with this design years ago for the Northern Territory University student paper, Delirra's 'Fuck Censorship' issue. Funnily enough it was censored. I republished the work in my first ever zine, which was called 'Verb', copies of which can still found in Darwin and various random zine outlets I dropped it off to while travelling around Australia for the first time. I started painting the picture a few years ago, but only finally finished the piece for the recent Random Molecules exhibition at Kick Gallery, although sadly it was too big to fit in the actual publication. There is talk of a poster run though...The Tree of Life
'The Tree of Life'
illustration,2007
Tim Parish
also see the Tree of Life painting.
Find more work by Tim Parish here
The UFO > by Tim Parish
The UFO
acrylic on canvas
Tim Parish 2008
This painting was inspired by recent readings on the nature of the UFO phenomenon which link it to some kind of psychic manifestation rather than a physical vessel from outer space. I've always been interested in the concept that if extra-terrestrial species were to visit our planet, they would be more likely to do so as astral energy bodies rather than in metal spaceships but Carl Jung explored this psychological query of the UFO phenomena in his book Flying Saucers written in 1959. He suggested that they were more akin to symbolic manifestations of the human unconscious, projected into reality as collective hallucinations. This theory was expanded upon greatly by psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna at a number of speeches and his books 'Archaic Revival' and 'True Hallucinations'. Here are few quotes from the latter:
"I believe that the transpersonal component of the human psyche is not distinct from matter and that therefore it can literally do anything. It is not subject to the will of any individual. It has a will and an understanding that is orders of magnitude more sophisticated than any one of the individuals who compose it as cells compose a body. It has a plan, glimpsed by individuals only as vision or religious hierophany. Nevertheless, the plan is unfolding. There will be many more UFO sightings, many more close contacts. Our belief systems are undergoing accelerated evolution via increased input from the other."
"Somewhere ahead of us there is a critical barrier where we will at last have enough data to obtain an integrating insight into the riddle of humanity's relation to the UFO. I believe that as this happens the childhood of our species will pass away and when this is done we will be free to use the staggering understanding that humankind and the UFO are one.
It is the genius of human technology to master and to serve the energies of life and death and time and space. The UFO holds out the possibility of mind become object, a ship that can cross the universe in the time it takes to think about it. Because that is what the universe is--a thought. And when thought becomes mobile and objectified, then humanity--novices in the mastery of thought--will begin to set out."
"Of course we may discover that we are not to set out; the future may reveal instead that there is something out there calling us home. Then it will be our technology and the call of the Other that will move toward meeting. The saucer is an excellent metaphor for this. When Jung suggested that the saucer was the human soul, he was more correct than he may have supposed. It is not so far away. That is the other thing. The last shift of epochs gave us relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Another epochal shift looms, but whether or not it is the final epoch is hard to say. Our roles as parts of the process introduces an uncertainty in our observations that bedevils prediction."
(True Hallucinations, Terence McKenna: pages 199-203)
The World Tree > exhibition by Tim Parish
Protestors gather under the tree of life as bulldozers approach. Televisions vomit endless waterfalls of information. A disembodied totem of animal, vegetable and mineral world stares at you in profile. The city speaks in confusing angles where we lose perspective. The world tree is burning while man meditates under its shade.
"The World Tree" is an exhibition of new paintings by Melbourne artist Tim Parish, co-founder and art director of Undergrowth.org at Open Studio The opening night will include music from Kafka and performance artist Si on Sunday the 15th of June at 7pm.
Details:
Opening Night:
7pm Sunday the 15th of June
with music by KAFKA
and spoken word performances by Si and Verbatim
Exhibition Dates:
15th - 29th June 2008
Address:
OPEN STUDIO (review)
(86 Tram Line opposite Northcote Town Hall)
Samples of the some of the work;
