Sean Gabriel Ellul Visual Artist - Poison Candy Paintings

POISON CANDY - THE SELF AND ITS DISCONTENTS. The predominant theme is sexually-charged and aggressive, working with the basic elements of human emotion and the inner sense of being and awareness. Attention is placed on the strength of the body, the beauty of the flesh manipulated to expose an inner raw emotion of sexuality and its inherent links with calmness, violence, ecstasy and release. The body is torn apart to strengthen the visual impact, becoming deformed, animalistic and larger than life, giantesque godlike beings that confront the viewer. The work explores and expresses a man's sexuality combined and conflicting with ideas of strength and softness. It looks at a series of masks and disguises repeated and reused with each new painting, examining facets of an idea each time the canvas is approached to develop part of a storyline. No picture is a separate text but contextualized as one element of a thematic continuum. The paintings reveal how the artist perceives himself and ultimately also questions how people perceive themselves and their sexuality. These ideas revert back to the title of the series which highlights the theme - Poison Candy - candy coated colours attract the eye to reveal something which is darker.