New photos from Vlada Bar – ‘Vlada Lounge’ painted specifically for my show at Vlada Bar, Elena and Zip at the opening, and ‘Bootycall’.

I’d forgotten how much I used to work to work with energy in friends’ homes in England – I’d clean them out energetically using frankincense, sage and a few other things, and always enjoyed advising how to enhance the energy of a place.

One thing I can’t stand is clutter, it really does my head in and there are good energetic reasons for that. (The untidiness I create when I’m painting is a different thing, it’s a creative chaos and does get cleared away – eventually. I like cool, clean minimalism and try to be very minimalist in painting generally.)

Art really changes the energy of a room. For example I just added my new paintings (see below) to where I live and I love how they’ve upped the energy, made it more inviting and warm.

Everything is energy, and people have suggested to me that I paint things that cheese me off, but I generally don’t because I feel my consciousness comes through my paintings anyhow.

I feel it’s my responsibility to be as conscious as possible and intend to be as positive as I can. That synergy comes through my paintings. The positivity I hope to create is for me a counterbalance to the many crap things that can and do happen in everyday life. What you pay attention to grows.

The news that Red Bar Gallery had been threatened with closure because of 2 of my paintings that were in the window.

When these paintings went in the window several males noted with pleasure that the women looked hungry and aggressive. But some other people – with influence – apparently think them ‘porn’.

Hmmm, so it’s OK for a woman to be naked in a picture and look miserable and totally powerless, like she’s just been raped – which is how a lot of nude women in paintings look – but it’s not OK for her to look like she owns herself, like in my art? Yes, in 2010 that’s how things apparently are for some people. This really sucks.

It freaks me out how acceptable it is for women to be so powerless in ‘art’. The idea of a woman being so broke she gets paid for sitting naked (art ‘model’) or dancing naked (‘dancer’) in front of a pile of pervs is really wierd and unacceptable to me. In my painting ‘Lapdancer’ (now on on show at the Vlada Bar, Miami) the colours I use are unusually miserable for me and suggest what I think of that situation.

One of the things so exciting about working on this painting is that it’ll be revealed to an audience on the opening night, and normally I work on commissions in collusion with clients. Even if they don’t see it until the end, I usually have an audience of one or two (thankfully they’ve all loved my work ’til now).

This time the painting will be revealed to a whole pack of people at once, so I’m really interested to see the reaction.

I’ve already done most of the painting tonight, which is unusual, so I guess I’m really excited about it! Other paintings can take months to be born – my naked woman with a guitar is a case in point;

Then there’s the one below which it would also be nice to finish before the show.

We’ll see. Lots of things to do.

Vlada Bar is Miami’s best gay  bar and I’m delighted to have been chosen to kick off their ‘Art On the Rocks’ series! My show will start on 8th July and I’ll be creating a painting especially for Vlada Bar, to be revealed that evening.

Vlada Bar is a Russian bar specialising in vodka and I’d love to see my ”Moody Blonde’ painting used on a vodka bottle sometime soon. I’ve always thought that image would be just perfect on a vodka bottle, what do you think? Here she is;