Dogman Print

Dogman - from Tom Smith's 'Mantle project' 2006. 'Mantle' /mæn’tl/, n. a cloak or loose outer garment (arch.): a covering: – v.t. to cover: to obscure: to disguise. The main thrust for this project was to explore the circumstance of lens distortion within photography and capture this trans-formative occurrence by means of the oil painting. The images are 'blurred' and the characters have vague features and no identity. This lends itself well to the objective of this project, namely, shamanic rituals and folk beliefs Utilizing images from town carnivals, (from L. carnem levare, "a farewell to the flesh"), my starting point for this work stems from the ritual of role-play and self transformation, the donning of a mask and concealment. Rituals reveal to us that there is a fundamental human fancy to shape-shift, to seek anonymity and ultimately the freedom from responsibility. This was indeed the grounds for the ‘feast of fools’, for the Bacchanalia Rites. These rites can still be found in the amateur dramatics of town processions, masquerades, in traditional animistic ceremonies which have existed the world over for countless generations. I see a direct link to our archaic past, to Earth rituals universal among all human societies. My individual expression has a foundation in shamanic practices and casts a thread to the rich folklore of many cultures but particularly to dying British folk traditions such as the Padstow ‘Obby ‘Oss’, the Green Man tradition, or the old Mummers plays with their devils and animal masks. The ‘Mantle’ paintings incorporate a personal contemporary articulation, an expressionism that is a mixture of both melancholy and farce. For me, the characters in the paintings grew to become iconic figures imbued with a quasi-religious symbolism ie ; they become emblems of themselves.