What is this that stands before me...

Towards the end of June, a compromise was reached. Still not keen on being interviewed, Jason sent me this: “Why don’t you write an essay on my shit without interviewing me... your thoughts on my art. If you run across something that you need to ask, that’s cool. Christ, you have a reasonable knowledge of art, massive heavy metal knowledge, an equal knowledge of horror movies and an actual literary knowledge of the horror genre that I don’t... you could autopsy my fucking career! That may be a bloody sight more interesting.”

I have some doubts, so don’t get your hopes up, dear reader. I’m a librarian, and a rather unlikely one at that. I’ve not studied art history, I know nothing about technique, and as for what makes ‘good’ art... What I do know, however, is heavy metal, horror and books.

Of course, that knowledge by no means qualifies me to autopsy Jason’s career. So this is not an in-depth critique of his work and his methods, and it’s definitely not an independent review; it’s an unashamedly biased, self-indulgent rambling art wank over some shit-hot art from an actual legend!

With that said, here’s a few of Jason’s works that have soundtracked the twelve-plus years of our friendship. At the end of this God-forsaken document, I’ve made a tracklist of metal songs that go with the works for your aural pleasure.

Let’s throw up the goats and blast off Into the Void! Alright yeah!

I first met Jason at Ōhinehou Coffee Company, where I was then working / experiencing purgatory as a chef. Taking his breakfast out to him for the first time I commented on his Electric Wizard t-shirt. We got to talking about the band, their album Come My Fanatics, the dark addictive thrill of heavy riffs, and so it began. Back then there were three massive images by Jason dominating the space in the Coffee Company.

On one wall, there was Southern Man, with its brooding, hellish background and that sinister Ministry of Works ghoul, standing there alone in the darkness, waiting to be free. That’s straight up Owen Marshall in visceral vision! He nailed the Aotearoa Gothic horror of Marshall’s short story, ‘Coming Home in the Dark’, while somehow also capturing the existential dread that comes with working the grill in a busy cafe.

Then there was the monolithic duality of Henry Jekyll MD and Mr Hyde, originally from the edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that he illustrated for Brett McDowell Gallery back in 2010. (As an aside, if anyone has a copy of that pukapuka, I’ll enter into a Faustian pact for it!) Self Destroyer II sees Jekyll sprawled out on the floor in a decrepit room, and it captures the kind of intimacy best suited for when you’re crawling on the ground to be closer to a Hell of your own digressions. Speaking of digressions, imagine, if you will, Frank Cotton from Clive Barker’s Hellbound Heart novella or the Hellraiser movie (both have such sights to show you) on the other side of that room, about to solve Lemarchand’s Configuration. (What’s your pleasure, Mr Greig?) Now that’s a hell of a horror crossover.

Anyway, so there’s Hyde, an uncaring deity, spite manifest, emerging from, and yet somehow also formed of, the dark. Serpent-headed cane in hand, his animalistic glare directs pure seething menace across the room. And Jekyll, who encapsulates the phrase ‘as above, so below’, with a fathomless stare that shines with the knowing sorrow of his failings and redemption. And yet Jason is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met (he’ll hate that). He’s lived quite the life though, and his own personal Jekyll and Hyde moments are laid unflinchingly bare in these works.

Take Mr Valdemar for example – how could I not love this! It’s inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s most diabolical short story for fuck’s sake! If you’ve not read ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’, get to the library, check out a collection of Poe’s short stories and indulge yourself! This work floored me when he showed it to me for the first time. It’s like the evil spawn of Käthe Kollwitz’s Poster for the German Cottage Industry Exhibition and Goya’s Wicked Woman, captured on the verge of death and judging the viewer for having the audacity to bear witness. I can’t articulate why it has such a hold on me, but the closest thing to it would be Strigoi’s absolute beast of a tune ‘Bathed in a Black Sun’. Speaking of audacity, Jason tells me it was inspired by a segment in Roger Corman’s anthology film Tales of Terror with Vincent Price as Valdemar, rather than the actual story, cheeky bastard!

And then there’s This Mortal Thought – the mighty Samuel Beckett is a literary icon and, like my stubborn mate, was known for kicking against the pricks. You can see this in his eyes as he glares from inside the frame. (Did you know Jason does his own framing? If you’re ever lucky enough to end up with one of his works make sure it’s in one of his! If it’s not then get it framed by him because it’s rude not to.) Jason’s uncanny ability to take what was already one of the most distinctive faces in twentieth-century literature and apply whatever dark magic he has at his command gave the print an imperious value that made me feel like I was being questioned by the Spanish inquisitor of Poe’s ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’. He claims not to have an actual knowledge of literary horror. Contemporary horror fiction, maybe not, but literary horror? I think he knows more than he lets on.

I know Jason will hate this but he’s the Ronnie James Dio of Aotearoa New Zealand art – what Dio could conjure in music he does with ink. Which takes me neatly to the impact of heavy metal on his works. Can I provide an insight into that? And should I? We are both diabolically addicted to it to be honest – in his own words “I fucking love it, from that first Sabbath riff I was hooked and I don’t want to share it!” I feel the same way, and it’s very much an “if you know you know” thing! Metal heads are a different breed – that music takes hold of you and colours everything you do. Like horror, it offers a form of catharsis. When you’re at a gig and the music is so loud your whole body surges with its energy or when you’re spiking with the adrenalin of a proper scare, that’s the same energy I get from Jason’s works.

So I’ll lift the veil for a glimpse, but that’s all.

Chaos AD could be a cavern underneath Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead, with the winged man flying to the light outside. Where the metal comes into this is in the title. I was having a quiet chuckle about that at the opening where it was first exhibited, when a gentleman stepped up beside me, stroking his chin and peering intensely at the work. “That title is profound! It really captures the tone of the work.” I coughed and muttered “yes” as he went further into this – I didn’t have the heart to tell him it’s the title of an iconic nineties album from Brazilian thrash metal legends Sepultura.

In Viking U-Boat (MkIII) and Viking U-Boat (redux) Lemmy and Danzig are either totemic frontmen or the worst merman ship’s figureheads ever, heading out from a harbour that conjures up Whakaraupō Lyttelton, on a mission to bring metal to the masses. Danzig also makes another late appearance as Zardog which captures his pompous nature (and I’ve just clicked writing this that old mate Zardog is the grumpy companion piece to Jason’s latest musician-based work, Willie Nelson as Cosmic Willie).

Then there’s the album cover for Jason’s band Saint Satori’s album Belladonna which has turned their singer into Medusa. She too could be lurking in a cavern on Böcklin’s Isle. Or the earlier work Opium (bury us in smoke) which paraphrases the title of sludge metal band Down’s song ‘Bury Me in Smoke’.

As I mentioned earlier, I can’t really articulate the impact of Jason’s work, but what I can say is that as much as his craft, talent and graft astounds me, it pales in comparison to the impact he has had as a friend, a brother in riffage, and the keeper of formidable music knowledge.

One last indulgence if I may, dear reader. There’s a list of tracks below. Plug them into the most powerful stereo you can find, crank the fuck out of the volume, and listen to them so loud it feels like a cataclysm.

Black Sabbath (Ozzy era) – ‘Into the Void’ Candlemass – ‘Solitude’
Ozzy Osbourne – ‘Hellraiser’
Electric Wizard – ‘Return Trip’
Arkham Witch – ‘I Love the Lamp’
Sepultura – ‘Refuse/Resist’
Pungent Stench – ‘Sick Bizarre Defaced Creation’
Carcass – ‘Keep on Rotting in the Free World’
Entombed – ‘Night of the Vampire’
Reverend Bizarre – ‘Doom Over the World’
Danzig – ‘Mother’
Motorhead – ‘Bomber’
Down – ‘Bury Me in Smoke’
Scorpions – ‘Sails of Charon’
AARA – ‘Heimgesucht’
Dio – ‘Holy Diver’
Type O Negative – ‘Summer Breeze’
Strigoi – ‘Bathed in a Black Sun’
Paradise Lost – ‘Tyrants Serenade’
Dethklok – ‘Murmaider’
Black Sabbath (Dio era) – ‘Heaven and Hell’