When I chose to fill my life with artistic creation… I was only an adolescent. I remember the moment. well, I was 14 years old and felt suddenly consumed by a desire, a need to draw… Since when I have been using all the artistic mediums within my reach: drawing, painting, embroidery, collage. A part of me remains with that adolescent eagerness to discover and create in an artistic sense.
While having attained a certain age, the desire – to live in a world of color and make artistic discoveries – is undiminished. Actually, it is probably even stronger than in my younger years. Following any period of doubt and inactivity I have always returned to my brushes and palette of colors, having a near constant need to express myself without using words.
However, in 2012 everything changed after a phone call from a doctor who told me that I was suffering from a neurodegenerative disease… After getting over the shock I sat myself down (in a wheel chair!) and threw myself into my work, which, as well as coloring my imagination, has since served as a comforting presence and safety valve for my frustrations.
My universe is dominated by color. Whether painting or embroidering, color is always as important as the subject itself. But how to speak more of one’s work? To what genre do I belong?
It has always been difficult for me to answer such questions. I would say that above all I am a figurative artist. But also, no doubt, part of the “outsider” movement.
Nature too has always inspired me. In discovering the artistic potential of embroidery, some subjects have become recurrent: mothers, black Madonna’s, mermaids, Little Red Riding Hood, Frida K.
As an illustrator I also make collages, using torn up pieces from old books, old photos, various fabrics and embroidery, and paintings… All these mediums are thus mixed to bring new life to those lives and faces long since forgotten.
My universe, year on year, is constantly renewed in an exploration of the world of childhood, color, drawings, textiles, embroidery, and painting. I work in the silence of forgotten faces and feelings… repairing and trying to retrieve them, sewing them into re-existence, reclaiming and bringing them back… with delicacy, gently, soaking them in color
When the nose has dyslexia, the conventions of clean and dirty mutate amuck-
Nightmares of being dunked in vats of perfume become the norm-
Social status disintegrates and intimacy with a skunk brings joy-
The man burrows into remote dung heaps further and further away from the tyrannies of soap-
When the nose has dyslexia, predictable roles and behavior are scrambled anew-
Musk entrenched supermen get stampeded by berserk fawns in heat-
Germ-Phobics fondle dung beetles whom with freshly molested vigor, do hind leg roll ups of squeeky clean solid citizens-
A prudish school marm finds a hidden rabid snapping turtle in her soul after being bitten by rotten apples given jaws by the teacher’s pet gone astray-
When the nose has dyslexia, rampant desire surpasses grandiose expectation.
A wart on a baboon’s ass blossoms into a more fragrant-than-thou perfume garden berry infecting a bestial psychopath who then penetrates with valor the furious posteriors of mandrills shimmying with profane delight
Eager vines of algae growing up from centuries of neglected teeth, climb greedily towards the fortune of a fresh breath heiress-
Gooey-Pollyannas wash their mouths out with soap before reciting mantras of bland nicety to contrite career criminals gnawing on clean conscience bunions jutting from angel’s feet-
19 of ClubsTrio of Femme SirensAuf Die SchaukelPhosphorescent Clown SquigglesLucky LimulusBrunette March
When the nose has dyslexia, sacred values of societal dust are sculpted into new poisons by the playful rogue nostril metastasizing-
The Outhouse-Leper becomes a vengeful king, skinning the pillars of communities, turning the hides into outhouse doormats-
Blind Peeping Toms suddenly regain their sight munching on outhouse-doormat brittle–thus seeing and tasting time honored models of proper conduct-
Yeast Infected Vaginas curtsy with hypnotic finesse, flirting with clownish tumescent yam jam giraffes, spurting forth voyeurs turning into martyrs, turning into manic surgeons whittling skunky joy toys in a sleepless scalpel trance-
When the nose has dyslexia, the lightning of childhood memory strikes unlikely victims–oceans of crystallized feelings awaken from deep sleeps re-inventing the heart-
A hardened Loan Shark gets entangled, softened and diced up by the frail sadnesses evoked by the rubbery wet scent of his baby sister’s favorite dolly lost in a distant rainstorm-
A loud mouthed schoolyard bully becomes a mute wise old sage, transcending all utterance, ruminating inwardly, building shrines of cookie crumb folly from the remnants of desserts the bully once coerced from the trembling hands of weaklings entombed in the bowels of forgotten grammar school lunch rooms-
The cold stares of ultra strict baby sitters, soberly stretch a whiny little brat’s dirty diapers into an almighty circus tent tundra sheltering cleaner than clean orphans sired by soap bubbles popping-
Formative Foodchain
When the nose has dyslexia, embarrassment lurks in excess.
The man narrowly escapes the lewd clutches of Germ-Phobics hiding in lairs of undigested corn kernels waiting to leap out and fondle him.
He burrows inexorably deeper into remote dung heaps further and further away from the tyrannies of soap, eventually reaching paradise, where fragrant nirvana is sweetest, and stench lost its voice to the carrion bird who sings dirty in reverse.
The man enters The-Nose-Has-Dyslexia restaurant, ordering a Skunky-Joy-Toy kiss smothered in freshly molested dung beetle sauce.
As frail diced up cubes of sensitive Loan Shark say grace, crowds of manic surgeons saddened by lost wet dollies, serve the meal in a sleepless scalpel trance-
The man tastes paradise, blessed by the voice of stench stolen by the carrion bird who sings dirty in reverse.
Suddenly The-Outhouse-Leper-Turned-Vengeful-King appears, interrupting the man eating, pedantically assailing him with correct table manner etiquette, forcing a squeeky clean knife and fork into his dungy hands…
Richard Gessner’s fiction has been published in Air Fish: an anthology of speculative work, Rampike, Ice River, Coe Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Happy, The Act, Sein und Werden, Skidrow Penthouse, The Pannus Index, Fiction International and many other magazines. A collection, Excerpts from the Diary of a Neanderthal Dilettante & The Man in the Couch was published by Bomb Shelter Props. Gessner’s drawings and paintings have appeared in Raw Vision, Courier News, Asbury Park Press, Rampike, Skidrow Penthouse, and exhibited at Pleiades Gallery, Hamilton Street Gallery, Cry Baby Gallery, The Court Gallery and the Donald B. Palmer Museum. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
“The Amazing Richard Gessner, Wizard of the word, and Alchemist of the image” -Vincent Czyz May 24, 2022
THIS WRITING IS AN AUTHORIZED DUPLICATION WITH PERMISSION AND EXPRESSED CONSENT
Mitchell Pluto 