Ax31 stands for axiom 31, which is something my father wrote out on a list of 58 such axioms. He had decided to make a complete list, in descending order of relevance, of all the rules that made up "reality," which I thought was pretty amazing. Basically, it states, in part, that the conditions of beauty and ugliness are alike in terms of consideration and are thus wholly based on opinion. Rather than this being that tired old trope, "art is in the eye of the beholder," it is more in line with Seneca’s views that the world is a place where such moral and aesthetic concerns are not inherently in nature but are a matter of meaning as applied by man. This extends to what is good and bad also.
So, when we externalise such concerns and pretend that beauty and ugliness and that which is good or bad are objective realities, we set the stage for internal confusion and external conflict. This axiom does not invalidate the hierarchy of realities in the world but instead validates the primary function of man to bring meaning to it, whatever that might be, always bearing in mind that the basis of this meaning is PAIN.
The ax31 series is my attempt to express this idea. It is not a series designed to appeal to all viewers, as I tried to take elements I knew to be universally held as beautiful and good and combine them with elements that are generally considered to be ugly and bad.
I thought a great deal about this as a result of growing up in the sixties and seventies when there was much upset and conflict about long hair and loud music and such stuff. I did a lot of drawings and other things trying to sort out what might be my own views, but I didn’t begin the work in earnest until about 1991 or '92, when I was reading over my dad’s list of axioms one day and the whole idea came to me. In the spring of 1993, I exhibited twenty or so of these proto-ax31 paintings in Vienna in a little gallery that usually dealt in erotic art (oh well) and a lot of them sold. Excited, I returned to LA and spent the next 9 or 10 years working on some 50 pieces (the process of making them is pretty labour-intensive).
Here there are 36 pieces shown, 14 others weren’t finished because of burn-out, but I will finish them eventually.