Gothic Artwork in Spotlight: Grotesque dogs

Today, I am going to present a Norwegian artist, Ole Martin Skaug. He does not have a homepage and he is not easily contacted. I do know, that he is a Bachelor of Arts from California State University, and that he also makes art using photos. To be honest, he is quite a mystery to me, but I'd like to present his marvelous statues. He makes these ceramic grotesque animals and humans, though I prefer the ones that are not so human. Each statue is made individually, so they are all unique. Though Skaug does make the same statue many times, but none are completely identical.

The dogs in the pictures are purchased by my mother. She is the one who introduced me to this fine statues! Luck for me, she said it would be okay to take the pics and post them. She also has a third dog, a hideous and deformed but yet so heartwarmingly cute dog with wings. It hangs from the sealing in the study room of their house. Unfortunately I didn't remember to take a photo of it too.

I really like the expressions they are making, and how the body language gives the illusion the statues have personalities. These were bought from a store in Oslo, NorweyDesigns. Skaug's work is brought there and there is also much more art and desing from all the Scandinavian countries.

Gothic Artwork in Spotlight: the Macabre Lamb

This post is a first in series of posts about artworks that somehow hit the spot of gothic aesthetics inside me. Basically this means I present a statue, an installation, a painting, a book, etc. or an artist whose work made me sigh of admiration. This time I am presenting something macabre, next time it is time for a little doze of grotesque!

So, this short post is about a piece of art I saw this week. I was on a brief trip to Oslo, the capital of Norway, and visited the new facility of Astrup Fearnley Museum. This wonderful museum presents contemporary art, you can read more about their future exhibitions from their website.

Instead of talking about the whole exhibition I saw, I'm just going to concentrate on one artist, Damien Hirst from United Kingdom. Or more precisely to one artwork. I fell in love with the piece (which was actually made of three parts, or should I say tanks). It was made 2007 and the name of it is God Alone Knows. Due to the shape of the room it was shown, I only took a close-up of the middle tank, wanting to demonstrate the reason of my infatuation.

As you can see, the artwork consists of glass, mirror, aluminium, marble, sheep and formaldehyde solution. Also you can probably notice that I am there too, as a reflection. This is why I love it so much, because in a sense it is interactive, the reaction of the viewer changes the way it looks. Think about it, if there were faces of horrified people, staring at the dead creature, or if there were people smiling of admiration, or if among the disgusted people one was smiling, almost laughing. It would make a difference, wouldn't it?

Unfortunately there weren't that much people, so I could not cause any disapproval by making deranged facial expressions.

I warmly recommend to visit the museum God Alone Knows is shown, there were many other creepy installations too!

Gothic aesthetics in song lyrics

Now, I do not know a lot about music, but I started to wonder some things when I heard one particular pop-music song. I started to think about lyrics in songs made by artists who are considered goth or bands that make gothic music.

The music in itself can vary from ethereal 80's goth music to 2000's more faster beat. But there has to be something that makes it creepy, a touch of eerie. It is hard to describe, but you know how in a otherwise perfectly normal lullaby there is one note, that strikes wrong, or too late? Then it makes the whole song somehow wrong and agonizing. 

But how about lyrics? There is no strict guidelines of how many times there has to be mentioned for example 'blood' or 'fear' or another keyword that frequently appears in the work of old masters. I do not think you can measure the gothness of some song in the way linguistics try. But if there is some spooky things mentioned, it can hardly be a bad thing. Besides, 'blood' and 'fear' are frequent visitors in rap music and opera music too.

My point is that it all comes to the interpretation the listener does. In the same way with that example of a lullaby, there can be something almost hidden creepiness in the lyrics. Something that makes it break the normality, makes the interpretation twisted. Also, if the title of the song and the lyrics are in a contradiction, it makes the song twisted. For example if the lyrics start to describe a pretty normal afternoon about a couple called Peterson, and the title is 'Slaughter of Mrs. Peterson' it makes the listener expect something horrific is going to happen, right? It makes the whole song more creepy, especially if the end of the song is somehow metaphorical and can be interpreted in many ways, one of them being something violent.

So what have we learned of this babbling of mine? That constructing one's identity too strictly ('I listen only Goth bands!') is not that fruitful. A goth can find gothic aesthetics from places others might not, and therefore enjoy of them too. It doesn't make those things 'Goth', but it doesn't make the person who is enjoying of them a 'non-goth' either.

And last, some lyrics that I think have something in common.


I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison
You're poison running through my veins
You're poison I don't wanna break these chains

- Alice Cooper, Poison -



Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

- Katy Perry, E.T. -



You are the perfect drug the perfect drug 
The perfect drug
The perfect drug
The perfect drug

Take me with you 
Without you everything just falls apart 
It's not as much fun to pick up the pieces

- NIN, The Perfect Drug -



I don't know about others, but I think the one in the middle is almost as creepy as the others two.

The Professor's Monthly Homework Assignment: Spring

Our lovely professor has given the Monthly Assignment and this time it is Spring! What does it mean to us, what do we like about it? Go and check what other participants think of spring too!

I like spring, because then one doesn't have to wear endless layers off winter clothes and ugly but sensible boots. Instead one can wear lovely high heels. These green beauties are made of silk, so one can hardly wear them if it is even the smallest chance of rain.

I have waited so long to use these again!

Spring is also the time of rebirth, the season of finding a mate and everybody's got their hormones all wind up and I am not sure if I personally like it. Usually I have not been affected by it that badly, but now this spring I got this feeling I'm like a bloody high-school student, slave to one's hormones and way too easily infatuated. It is annoying, but at the same time quite nice. Of coarse I have a hard time admitting it publicly, it makes me feel so embarrassed. Yeah, I've been listening to this song a lot, because I am starting to feel a bit obsessed.

And last, a nice picture of flowers.

CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report: March forward!

It is once again time of CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report! This time the task is to show our work shoes, meaning the ones we use everyday due to the realities of walking long distances or dress code or other reasons. You can find other participants from here, go check their shoes too!

I live in a cold and bleak city, where is snow and hale and slush snow, and they can change from one to the other within a week. For the last six months I've been walking to the university or to the shops and other places, because it was just two kilometers from my old flat. This means that I walked from 4 to 8 kilometers daily, so the shoes had to be comfortable.

One can clearly see, that those shoes are used and the surface is slightly damaged. They have served me well, but I hope I find better ones before winter comes back and buries me into her cold whiteness again.

Now that I live 400 meters away from the university, I shall be able to use more high heals. Also, the spring is coming, so soon I do not need to worry about snow and icy roads anymore. These boots are lovely, but there is one slight problem. I found them at a flea market and they are one size too big for me. Therefore my ankles start to hurt, if I walk with them too long. I shall try to figure some way to make them more my size, so that I can wear them as "work shoes". I wonder if somewhere they sell some sort of ankle support thingies I could wear inside the shoe.

Hierarchy of needs, aka. how important aesthetics are for goths?

This post is mainly inspired by the fact that I moved into a new flat almost two weeks ago. I guess it is relevant to tell, that my common-law marriage ended in last September and I had to live in the old flat till February because the rental contract was determined to that month and there would have been financial sanctions if I had broken the contract before that.  But that's enough about the private life of Jade!

I have been awfully busy with the whole operation of moving for the last month and I felt completely exhausted. So, instead of organizing the fridge or other more urgent matters, I started to hang paintings and photos on walls.

It made me think Maslow's hierarchy of needs. For those who do not know it, or just can't remember at the moment, here is a nice information package. According to Maslow, physiological needs like food and shelter are the base of human's needs and the last priority is self-actualization, which includes creativity.

This is an old theory and there has been criticism against it. The prioritization can vary in different circumstances and I started to wonder, is my circumstance altered, or in what stage of need the environments physical attractiveness is situated. The aesthetic nature of a human's environment is not mentioned in the bottom portion of Maslow's triangle, so I assume it is considered to be a part of self-actualization, since making one's home cozy is expressing one-self.

Kitchen. The chandelier is owned by the other roommate.

I am bold enough to claim that in goth culture the aesthetic has a big role. At least for me personally it has an important part in my life and luckily my new roommates approve my sense of decor in the no man's land (aka. living room, kitchen and corridor). I am not ashamed to confess, that I get sings of depression if my environment is ugly. Or if I can not dress at least in a moderately gothic way. I'm not saying that all goths are vain or disturbingly attached to pretty objects, but I think it is sort of a part of the sub-culture to have the tendency to appreciate twisted beauty.

The corridor. 

 The corridor would be so depressing, if there weren't some paintings or the cages on the dresser, don't you think?

Close-up. In the cage is a fluffy chlamydia bacterium.

 For last but not least, my worktable. I decided to hang on the wall a drawing made by a friend, since it has been away from the walls for nearly a year. I like it very much, it is sad and beautiful at the same time. I need some beauty in front of my table, since I must spend a lot of time there doing my Bachelor's thesis and other essays. As seen in the picture, the table is already in a mess.

Also, the painting is not tilted, it just looks like it thanks to the point I took the photo from. Thank you for reading and next time it is CorpGoth's Mid-Moth Status Report!

CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report: Love What You Do

Lovely Trystan in her blog This Is CorpGoth has given us an opportunity to tell about our career, school or other vocation. More precisely, what we love about what we do. Here is Trystan and other participants, go and check what they love about their careers!

I study Finnish literature at a university and I love it. Basically this means that I study theories and methods of literature studies in general, like in comparative literature, but I am to focus on developing my expertise on history of Finnish literature and the institutions that have an effect on it (like changes in the field of publishing, stipends for writers and so on).

I love reading fiction, I love studying those theories and especially I love how literature studies have changed the way I see the world. It is like I have these gogglers and I can see how our culture is full of conventional features that are actually from fictional literature.

And besides, in our examinations part of the books are fiction. For example I have read 12 children's and youths' books including Harry Potter and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the questions were like "tell us about the horror elements in Wonderland" and I got study-points for it. How cool is that!

At the moment I am doing my bachelor's thesis about a Finnish novel from the view-point of menippean satire and rhetorical devices. I could go on and on about it, but I must restrain myself. I just post a pic where are some of the theory books I am probably going to use.

In general, I strongly encourage people to read more fiction, it is fun and makes you see the world from a new angle, trust me!