COSA18 Interviews Ryan Maloney from Cerebrot.com

“Swasticrow”

     If there’s an artist I’m positive deserves my respect and admiration, only a single individual comes to mind. Surpassing all celebrity and expectations of a dear friend, “if this isn’t real, then this is as real as it gets.”

     Over the past year I’ve wanted great things for COSA18, one especially being to go out with a bang, not with a whimper. If there’s one person who’s taught me how exactly to achieve that this crucial year of mine, it’s the most spectacular artist I’ve had the honor of unexpectedly befriending—Ryan Maloney. The pleasure was, has been, and will be all mine.

 

Whether you feel you fit the broad definition or not—why are you an artist? When do you believe you became what it means to you?

I am an artist because Charles Manson is locked up, because Jesus Christ is a lie, and because being born is far more of a bloody and painful spectacle then dying. The first time someone told me that what I was drawing was disgusting was when I truly felt like an artist. I believe it was in fourth grade, where I was sent to the school social worker for drawing monsters doing unspeakable things to people.  I am an artist because I have to be, because I feel compelled to put something into the world besides CO2.  My whole life I have been lied to, and promised and threatened and pressured by men under the banner of God. All those people only ever encouraged me to subtract things from my life, and separate myself from the world.  Being ‘worldly’ was to be evil growing up, but now I consider the alternative to just being invisible.  So I paint, write, and photograph unsheathed.

“Fraternus”

Are you influenced or inspired by other artists? Do you think there’s a difference between the two?

I am heavily influenced by other artists. But not generally inspired. For me, being inspired is typically difficult and out of my control.  If anything, looking at art is discouraging when I am uninspired. Thoughts such as ‘why didn’t I think of that’, or ‘Christ s/he is good, I’ll never have that much discipline’, or other such negative thoughts.  But when I look at nature, and photography, and get outside a bit I can get whims of momentum, and within a few days I’m usually gritting my teeth to get off work and throw some penciling down.  I usually have a list of 10 things I want to paint at a time.  Or destroy 10 previous ones. It’s either or.

Besides fellow artists, what influences and/or inspires you?

Biology, botany, fetish, sobriety, medieval art, surreal photography and music. Also not being able to paint inspires me. Like only drinking coffee for 3 days; if you down a cold glass of clean water after that you are probably going to orgasm. Or create something, in my case.  You said besides fellow artists, so I hope that answer is sufficient.

Your own blood is your popular medium. When did you begin using blood in your paintings (or in any other artistic creation)? What led you to the choice?

Somewhere in a lot of books that everyone has read people say that blood forms the strongest bond. And people wonder why I paint with it. I may not live for very long on this earth, but hopefully my paintings will.  Blood work never really took an artistic form for me until my 20’s, but it was a means of dealing with extreme emotional distress before that. Inner thighs when I was young, progressing to ribs and pectoral areas these days. People who cut their arms probably would be advised to not try and relate to me, as I have no patience for it. The old lady at Starbucks shouldn’t feel the need to pet you and tell you she loves you and everything’s going to be OK. That would mortify me. Why would you want that kind of attention? Getting scornful emails, and negative comments in front of your paintings is far healthier in my opinion.  I chose to do it because it releases adrenaline in my brain, and I’m addicted to it. I love to paint and draw, so eventually the two just spiraled together.

Have you always solely used your own blood, or have you used the blood of other people or animals in your work?

I’ve only used my blood but I have made a few commissioned pieces using other people’s blood to paint their live portraits. It always ended badly. Apparently taking the commission was akin to prostitution. And that’s not what I plan on when I pick up a paintbrush. Live painting is anxiety to me. I don’t know how a person can engage in sex acts after spending hours worrying that they are making the victims neck too fat or eyes too bland.  So now I strictly paint in my own. It’s my art, my craft and my madness.  The only blood I would want to mix with my own in a work of art would be another artist, not a bystander.

 “Myself as a Bird”

I won’t inquire the specifics of your blood drawing methods, but I will ask this: do you ever dread having to draw the blood for use in a piece?

If anything it’s the opposite. Though there are days where I look at a finished penciling and as I cotton scrub it down (fading) I get a pang of annoyance at the labor that is impending. Once I start and that rush hits my veins however, the bar is down and the ride has begun.  Recently I’ve been using vials and painting from stored/refrigerated blood for ease of effect and its just nice when you are out of Bactine and don’t feel like being shirtless.  You can’t do this kind of thing and not get a little bit excited about it. If you don’t lick your lips a little bit you should probably hit the hobby store and pick up some paints.

Clearly, you are not the only “blood painter” out there. Do you hold any sensitivity or lackluster involving the field of blood painting?

Clearly. I started this before I knew others existed. I had no doubts that there would be others, because no one invents anything these days. I’ve been gravely disappointed at other people’s ability to give me any credit, since I have a lesser fan base or whatever. But in the previous 12 months time I’ve sold a few thousand bucks worth of original art, prints, and commissioned live pieces, and have had several photo shoots with more on the way, and more orders pending.  So, that pretty much comforts any sensitivities I have about being accused of copying or wanting to crawl up another artists ass.  There are certain individuals that I hold sensitivity to. It’s not in my nature to be forgiving, or overlook things unfortunately.  I’m a grudge keeper, and its horrible immature but immovable. Art isn’t about choosing sides so people can think whatever they want.  For some people art is like changing songs on an iPod, which is a shame.  I don’t paint for other people. I paint for me. If you don’t like it then just hit next.

What types of environments do you create when painting?

I try as hard as I can to not create any environment. Painting the things that I like would just be ruined if I tried to put them in a setting. That’s what photography is for in my opinion. But many a great painting has one form of environment or another that makes it wonderful. I just am incapable of achieving that at this point.

What piece are you most proud of, and why?

Infetish is the one I am most happy with… but I am definitely not proud of my works. I’m proud of people having the courage to tell me that I’m degenerate or fucked up, because I believe that takes more courage than what I do.  Correction. I am very proud of everyone who works with me on photo shoots, and my kitten when he superman slide tackles my painting and forces me to start over and create something better.

“Infetish”

I’m sure you’ve heard about Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar video being leaked from the depths of his website by a hacker of sorts. With Cerebrot.com unopened to the public, how would you feel and react if someone infiltrated your art in a similar way?

I did hear about it, and was sent the video before I was even aware of an issue or leak or anything. I was expecting something totally different. It showed up in my inbox first thing in the morning before work, I hit play, rubbed my eyes and started my morning with one of my favorite songs, paired with a strange video.  It wasn’t till two days later that I found out people were piss whipped about it. Now it feels like a drunk hook-up. It just kind of happened, it was over before you know it, and now everyone is standing around yelling and pointing fingers and someone might lose their job. Cerebrot.com will be a blip amongst a billion blips. People won’t visit it often, it will just be partnered with my Facebook page to be updated with new pieces and shoots. And the occasional photo-travelogue or absinthe review.

The video was magic. It’s a shame it caused such a stir.

In Plato’s Republic Socrates says, “as [far as the] arts are concerned, then, no art ever studies or enjoins the interest of the superior or strong party, but always that of the weaker over which it has authority.” What do you think about this statement?

Horse shit. Art can absolutely be the authority on the superior party.  AKA critics, or swarms of fans whose wallets can skyrocket a piece to infamy.  Weak and strong can’t be distinguished in the face of art save for the few that can destroy it, or engulf it in recognition.  Art has silence and stirred millions of people for ages. Looks like Socrates didn’t have his little boy the day he wrote that.  Paintings, statues, palaces, jewelry, monuments have been erected for ‘superior’ people and often those are the pieces of art that endure the test of time.  I could just be misinterpreting the quote though. It’s 3:00am.

 “The Light Shines”

Over the next ten years, where do you hope your art carries you? Or, where do you hope to carry your art to?

I want someone to have a cardiac arrest standing in front of one of my paintings in a gallery, and have the person’s family spend inordinate amounts of money on the piece so they can ritually destroy it in the name of God.  Then I would like to attend the funeral and be thrown out. That is success. 

Interview by Alexis Voltaire

CEREBROT.COM

At all costs I sought to give that which smothers you.

     I’ve been in love once. When the relationship ended, my trauma was realizing that who I was in love with wasn’t the person I had been involved with. It wasn’t a fabrication on my behalf (“. . .just as today our unsophisticated cameras record in their own way our hastily assembled and painted world.”), but a lot of false play and acting from the opposite end of the spectrum. Largely, it was, “I want to be, I want to be, yet I’ll never be.” (“Pretend all you want, you can cry to your heart’s own beat.”)
     From my end, I believe I was bodily in love. It felt as science defines it, so I imagine it was true despite the diamonoid fixture I directed it towards. I had never felt that way before in or out of love, especially when considering the bereavement I experienced following his initial absence. (“It was plain that he was upset by the loss of that precious object. It was plain. The loss of the object upset him. The object was precious. He was upset by the loss of the object.”)

     Someday, I want to fall in love with someone and selfishly reexperience the emotions I miss everyday. The constant fascination, a joy unexplainable, the desire to dedicate anything and everything I create (“Powerless to utter itself, powerless to speak, love nonetheless wants to proclaim itself, to exclaim, to write itself everywhere. . .”). I don’t hold reservation with trusting another person to the extent I did (“I know that I’ll have regrets, but that’s the price of one more lesson learned.”), but I am a bit wary at this point of a man’s promises if they sound the same. Maybe because it’s still fresh in my mind, but maybe lies are similar even if the people necessarily aren’t.
     More than anything, I want to care about another human being again with familiar passion. I had never felt more alive than I did when I was in love. Everything magnified and glorious beyond the norm, absurdly Nabakovian till the very last moment of fleeing a beheading. A muse, a grandeur inspiration of things I enjoy and dedicate myself too—that’s what I want love for, that’s what I want my altar to resemble.

     As for “the One,” it will be whoever my husband turns out to be. There isn’t a cosmic spider web of humanity separate from the aesthetic play of the popular notion. I don’t believe in divorce for my future. By default my husband will be referred to as “the One.”

We ache to dedicate, us in love.

     An intimate disgrace, the fashion in which my inspiration to drive creativity evacuated shortly after you were excused. & when you’re not sure what your ranking is beyond the departure from the ship you savored, where are you to be stranded in the sea of thoughts and names, my oh-so-hopeless Magdalena?

     A tugging from the anchor beckons you, “write write write, if only for the sake of writing every morning at 9 AM as sharp as you are in love.”
     “And if I do, to whom shall it be dedicated?”
     With no siren to accept the grace, to dive into your depths with assuring wonderment, why impregnate the work not yet prose? A sailor waited not prior to your pen’s touch; a sailor waits not now, for he stands stranded and strangled on the shores of self-deceit bearing the name, “your Magdalena, please come home.”

     Incurably scribing poetic dedications and lengthy acknowledgments with sorry aim to suffice our greatest works found lacking a substantial purpose undirected. Who’s to say a subliminally directed message renders something thought imperfect, perfect?

     Lying in what you create by the bed and the tongue, I dedicate this to the “desperately seeking a muse” class of my fellow man. Dear you...

A jolted note before bed,

    There’s a lot of reasons why my life is enjoyable, why it’s great. Much negative, still so much positive. Electromagnetic, I am what I am what I want to be and that’s always been me, or I’ve been told. Proud, proud, proud—to be free.

This is about the difference between you and me--

     As we’ve gone along every step of this way hand in hand or falling apart, I have been a step ahead of the game and yours ad nauseam.

     Oblivious in my silence, you assume, still to consider the reality of the matter. Perhaps I knew then, and then, and then, and now again. Hint: I did.

     The set-up: I knew. The girls: I knew. The dilations: I knew.
     We died late. I hope you have regrets.

Monroe Makes Thirteen

     For a few years I’ve considered getting a monroe piercing. Holding me back was the worry that my face would appear too “cluttered” because of how many facial piercings I already had (snakebites, nose, tongue).

     The other day I took a photo and I couldn’t help but think that it would look so much better if I had a monroe piercing in it. I asked a few friends their opinions and got thumbs up all around, so I went ahead and got it done yesterday afternoon by a friend (who happens to be a professional piercer).

     My friend doing the procedure made the experience much more pleasant than any other. The comfort of my room, my music, and someone I trust doing the piercing was a completely relaxed environment. I can say with much assurance that getting my monroe was the least painful piercing I have ever gotten, and I believe it largely has to do with what I just described.

     If you’re curious as to what all I have done now, here’s a list—

1.) 2 lobe  2.) 4 cartilage (one left, three right) 3.) 1 industrial (left) 4.) 2 lip (snakebites) 5.) 1 nostril (left) 6.) 1 tongue 7.) 1 monroe (right side, which might even be called something else by some, but I’m not sure)

     This leaves me with a grand total of thirteen, if you count the industrial as two (which I do, considering it took 45 minutes and bled like crazy).

Are You the Rabbit?

     I am a danger to your life, I’ve come here to ruin it—this we hopelessly surmise. I’m not prepared to ever apologize in my name’s sake, however. I’ve been through this a million times before. One of the onlys of our issues is that you have not, not yet, not with dangerous me. Ruthless, conniving, vindictive; unwilling to surrender with or without a fight to the death of the inevitable end. I am the brakeless train, don’t beg the question of if there should be a complimentary wreck after you’ve promised me there’s room in your life.

     For you this might be exciting defiance. For me it’s a pathetic repetition I should know better than. Although, I will take partial blame, full if it is fault of my own for this lifestyle I’ve dripped into. Do I enjoy difficulties? Perhaps I’m rendering it so.

Thursday’s Thoughts - Theme: Realizations

     Dwelling and eating me inside out like maggots in disguise; I’ve had a few realizations recently.

1.   I was genuine with every inhale of ash blonde breath. Heart-wrenching tonight, it was realized wholeheartedly where you had never found me.
2.   It is possible to use someone after ties have been severed, even if no conscious thought of usage had occurred when they were originally wrung tight.
3.   There are wrong reasons and right reasons for (ab)using someone. I have not justified use with a wrong reason.
4.   My body is simply a body, although it is mine to partially do what I wish with.
5.   Vanquishing specific emotions will eternally be unfeasible, lest I self-annihilate without resurrection to complete the Übermensch show.
6.   I am the Übermensch as long as I want to be, for the ape is still within thee.
7.   Slacking on my studies wasn’t a result of a declining care for biology, instead, an escalator gallivant to the roof of attention in pursuit of a spotlight.
8.   Someone would die in place of me. My value must be high, so shall it remain and rise.

This Week’s Theme: Realizations

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.” - Unknown

“But egoism is more than this. It is the realization by the individual that he is above all institutions and all formulas; that they exist only so far as he chooses to make them his own by accepting them.” - John Buchanan Robinson

“Having seen and felt the end, you have willed the means to the realization of the end.” - Thomas Troward

Apples of Sodom

            No one writes songs for pussies like you.

             
            Don’t wonder—I already knew.

            Anyhow,

            We have come to the realization that I am not what you wanted

            But what you wanted to be.

            As for you—

            I could show you how special you aren’t.

            Though, you should figure it out on your own.

Zarathustra’s Prologue. Section 3. Page 12.

    “I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?

    “All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.

Case of the Missing Bereavement

     It’s nearly engrossing how less I feel in the arms of what I hold close to you. Your nonexistence, it pleases me. Watching you suffer, God, that too.

     To beyond greater things than the grandeur you were enveloped in—my ideals, perhaps of you.

     What a peculiar feeling to be this so-called “in love,” when we were just falling so terribly far and apart. Maybe I still don’t know what it feels like, your absence just isn’t devastating enough for it to be true…

     For now, this is all I want to feel—but not with you.

I tend to trouble when I doublethink

     Whatever I’m doing, it’s never beautiful enough, it’s never enough of what it has to be and that’s me.

     My “art” is merely projections of people, places, tings, the noun standing alone. To be pro- it would probably need a little more so.

     While it keeps looking I’ll stay searching. The unification could be grand, glorious, perhaps a bit grotesque. I think it’s time I become a little bit of my own grandeur view of this life.

Today my realization was the following—

   When in my prime, I’m forced to the pedestal with a choice: pride or dive.

   Pushed me to the brink of madness, with the options upon cystalline presentation: gloat freely in retaliation, destroy me in dissociation, or gaze into the abyss for it longs to gaze into you, of desperation.

Nineteen...

     “I betrayed you,” she said baldly.
     “I betrayed you,” he said.
     She gave him another quick look of dislike.
     “Sometimes,” she said, “they threaten you with something—something you can’t stand up to, can’t even think about. And then you say, ‘Don’t do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.’ And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.”
     “All you care about is yourself,” he echoed.
     “And after that, you don’t feel the same toward the other person any longer.”
     “No,” he said, “you don’t feel the same.”

     It’s a “primitive” thing to be reduced beneath love by an outside force. The act is so unfamiliar to our species, it’s nearly unheard of in our society as bare discussion.
     How could they feel the same? How could they not hold high dislike for one another? Perhaps this is dislike of realizing one’s own instincts, particularly how far a human will go to protect themselves. I would be disgusted with myself if I were forced to betray you, but not deniable. I couldn’t feel the same about you because I wouldn’t be able to feel the same about myself.

     This is my favorite example of the realistic weaving of love.

Childhood Friends

     There’s nothing that can match the feeling of hanging out with some friends that have known you since you were children. The bond so strong, the love a different of its kind with a fresh variety all its own, the mutual care is impenetrable.

     Of the deepest loves, this one soars high above the depths of the darkest oceans teeming with life so far known.

“Before everything else, I was like you”

     “The Fragile” is bellowing from two regions of the house, feeling like a surreal type of moment for a reason I cannot define.
     To some extent it’s suggestive of five years past, a time when I should have been luxuriating in life’s young simplicities of being 12-13, in lieu of the intricacies of distorting heartbreak. Wholly—the authenticity of a world I was by no means ready for, shining in a world full of ugliness.
     I suspect the dichotomy is a life on two different tracks, double spaced by time and event and emotion. On the horizon, I go towards the absence of light, where everything is meaningless...

My Worries Over Studying

 

     I’m exhausted already and it’s not even 5PM. I really hope all this studying is worth it, how could it not be though? I worry sometimes that I’m not studying the right subjects, or perhaps I’m focusing too much on subjects that aren’t the most crucial for me to be most knowledgeable on.
     I think my problem is that I always want something to worry about, haha. I’m done, back to studying.

     Also, I think now would be a great time to mention that as of beginning and finishing Go Ask Alice this morning, I have read forty-five books in the year 2010. I am so proud of myself already, yet I am more proud of recognizing that it’s not enough just yet.

Racionalidad~.

     I feel I’m losing my ability to rationalize when it’s probably the spectral opposite. I feel as if I’m barreling through, gaining strength and will over my conscience at premature pace, but as if neurologically I’m convinced that it just isn’t true. How can you be sure what to believe when both arguments are spoken by you?

The Self of the Sadist

     I hate not knowing what’s next. It’s the stem of my anxiety, blossoming into countless beautiful irrationalities to the sadist. Someone reigning over the rain I’m left under to wade through the unknown. It’s not the abyss nor the galaxy, it’s the absolute unknown. Someday, I might just collide into another, and then? One day this human descent into annihilation? Who knows, it’s all a piece of the feared unknown.

     I’m trying to grip myself, decapitating the condescending fears. I’m afraid of sharks/tornadoes/the unknown, they had become virtues when their result respected vices.

     In the words of one winged creature to another unbeknown:

if you can hear this, don’t assume…

One Last Run

I will never ever ever be able to run far fucking enough away from…

Trio No. 2 in Catastrophic Minor

    It’s the point when life itself becomes your own Hell, no longer is your prison the single skin but the room you inhabit, the area you’re contained within. Encompassing the best we know, we lose ourselves in our false realities and insecurities, dwelling to the frequency we twiddle at. Am I red or am I blue, losing myself to the depths I know, infinite in the sense that I will never stop or begin for I expand from the central point in equal ratio to all my other pieces. The farther I throw the longer I gasp for breath, and when does my crunch take place? Collisions are the only thing keeping me connected to myself, I should be grateful.