August 1 2007 Front Page

Dave Besseling Born 1979, Peterborough, ON. Canada. Currently interloping in Chiang Mai, Thailand and have spent the last 6 years living and traveling in a variety of countries to nurture a lateral appreciation of human diversity/mania and nurture to some degree a relevant capacity for self-awareness. All this and a deep appreciation for pretentious headshots. My artwork is an exercise in documenting the subconscious mind and exploring the relationships between past experiences with personality and the images that seem to get all mixed up under the Id. Living in different cultures seems to afford somewhat of an objective view of what makes up the mind; what has been learned, seen or felt can be placed in a quantifiable context as opposed to identifying unconditionally with the persona of "Dave". The symbols and iconography cultures create to represent possible states of mind beyond the intellect are always an inspiration to me. Dave Besseling currently has three publications in circulaton, Nakayubi Two: The Barnstormer. (poetry), Kusuriyubi One: Fun With Memes! (prose) purchase, Nakayubi One: the cynic, the critic, the masochistic anemic. (poetry). featured poem GMT + 2 Europe Austria Voralberg 47 31 00 N 009 46 00 E BREGENZ I thought you were pretending to sleep so I’d carry you to the car, but you’d just had too much beer. For you that’s half a glass - half a glass too full – some would say half gone, maybe I would as well, your blood unwilling to forge and smelt; to perform the hops transmute. In these Teutonic pubs the schnitzels are what weigh my lids, Chérie. You look as peaceful as your blind cat as you sleep. What a China doll would look like if a China doll could weep. Your closed eyes - calligraflourish slits best not seen but felt, like a blind man’s sense of smell. Acute. You’re like the apocalypse. Lightning waits in clouds. Dynamite stuck down a flute. by Dave Besseling