Tuesday, May 5, 2009

"man understands divinity like a dog understands electricity"


Abraxas by Justin Bartlett.

I can't remember where i first saw Justin's artwork, quite possibly some of the illustrations he did for Oaken Throne or Sunn 0))). I was immediately struck by the seeming contradiction of his work appearring to be utterly mired in genre tradition and simultaeneously being somehow apart from where his contemporaries were coming from.

This is the second Abraxas shirt design we've used. This one will be availble at any shows we play over the summer. No mailorder, Bezerker Wear still has the Blockade: Serpent/ Messiah design for sale

Gnosticism, antinomianism, cosmogony, Christian heresies and a plethora of subjects relating to the notion of the divine have been at the forefront of my mind for a long time. In a sense i feel like i've been undergoing a strange theophany (as part of an ongoing lifting of the veils) since 2005 and the figure of Abraxas as Archon has recurred heavily in this time.

As participation in underground culture continues to evolve to being both everything and nothing to me Abraxas becomes a useful shorthand for a far more complicated set of symbols that are continuously expanding and eternally unknowable.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In "Perfection", where are the samples taken from?

Survivalist said...

the first part is two recordings of police approaching the Branch Davidian Waco compound spliced together and the last is a recording of a hostage counsellor trying to talk David Koresh out of the compound