Parasite 01

Digital - 297x210mm - 2019

This drawing is one of two created for the third issue of the French punk art zine Ад-Ra. I was invited to be apart of the zine by a French man also named Xavier aka Bikesabbath (check out his work here). I first met Xavier during Kappunk 2016, it was a brief meeting, and I think it happened outside one of the venues, we then met again during 2017 around the time of the Life/Gauze show. I always have trouble remembering new people's names and despite having the same as me French Xavier was no exception, I didn’t actually learn\remember his name until years later when we connected over Facebook, even then I was dubious to call him that because it might of been a moniker he took on due to being such a huge X-Men fan. I don’t actually know whether he is an X-Men fan or not. And now I’m back to being unsure whether his name is Xavier or not… I’ve gotten distracted by a pit of self doubt. Apologies.

So French-X (I’m tired of typing my\our name) asked me to be a part of the Ад-Ra zine, I don’t know how to pronounce the zine name. The zine features artists from France, Japan, Mexico and an Australian. I was immensely stoked to be a part of it, it was my first time contributing to a zine, and I generally get excited to be a part of anything to do with art and other artists.

The theme for the issue was Parasite. So I drew a mosquito, a war mosquito, a psychedelic war mosquito. The mosquito started off as a study to learn how to draw the insect and as is often the case, I got carried away. I was stoked how it turned out and I retroactively made the meaning about politicians being blood suckers and making war and stuff that really wasn’t planned or thought out. Then a good science friend of mine informed me that all the mosquitoes that suck blood are female. This made me not want the drawing to have a negative association to females.

My friend went on to tell me: “Men make up 70% of the politicians in parliament in Australia alone. Worse in other countries. Because women have been held back and oppressed and told that we are not as important as men, and that we can’t do the job as well as a man could. The bad decisions of war have been made by men. And women have suffered for it.”

This made me think of all the misery and horror women have had to ingest due to wars started by men. So I decided the drawing is about that. Because art has no rules and I have no problem with tacking on a meaning to a drawing after it’s been created.

Thanks to French-X for being an incredibly nice person, and for asking me to be a part of Ад-Ra. Also check out his metal band Meurtrieres, they rip! 

Also thanks to my science friend who is way smarter and more thoughtful than me.