A Room with a Waterfall
by
WAYNE VIVIER
18 July 2025
Wayne Vivier is an award-winning artist based in Pretoria, South Africa. Born in 1976 in Welkom and raised in Pretoria, he initially pursued a career in technology, obtaining a B.Sc. in Computer Science from UNISA and working as a software developer in Johannesburg for six years. In 2005, he returned to Pretoria to follow his passion for art, completing a Master of Technology (M.Tech) in Fine Arts at Tshwane University of Technology in 2011.
Since then, Vivier has held ten solo and two-person exhibitions and participated in numerous curated shows and national competitions, including the Sasol New Signatures, ABSA L'Atelier, Thami Mnyele, and State of the Art Gallery Award exhibitions. In 2016, he was awarded runner-up in the 'For the Love of Art' competition hosted by Longstreet Art Lovers 1932 Gallery.
His work forms part of various public, private, and corporate collections and has attracted interest on the secondary market, with sales at auction reflecting strong returns on investment.
Wayne Vivier's practice explores the intersections of the spiritual, the psychological, and the aesthetic, often weaving personal experience with broader cultural commentary in a visual language that is both raw and contemplative. He is also included in the artist lists of Longstreet Art Lovers 1932 and The Viewing Room galleries.
Repetition series 2024: Local image #113-128, or Self portrait
30 August 2024
When I got saved, did I instantly become sinless? I do not think so. By receiving the Holy Spirit, did I suddenly stop sinning? Did I suddenly achieve the perfection and glory of God? Was I suddenly able to determine and judge like God can? I don't think so. Did my conscience suddenly gain the ability to absolutely determine right from wrong? No way! Definitely not. I am still a sinner. I have as yet not reached the glory and perfection of God. And I never will. I am a big old baddie. The best of me knows that I live with uncertainty and confusion. I need to live under grace. And God gives me that.
I hear a bell ring
And a bird tweet
Crunch crunch
Click
Another gun poem. I invented gun poetry. I don't know why I feel I have to say that. Is it really even worth mentioning?
I think I would like to try writing mirror poems, with a left and right side. The left side right-aligned and the right side left-aligned, forming a vertical line down the middle, with matching lines in length or rhythm on each side, or lines that are in tension with each other, or a mixture of the two. Or maybe an asymmetrical balanced poem, with the extremities of one side balancing out the extremities of the other, creating a balance with tension. The poems could be about history, politics, religion, philosophy, art, and personal narrative.
These faces remind me of other people, not me, except for the last one.
Wayne Vivier
Local Image #113
2024
*
15 June 2024
Made in the image of God. Searching here is perhaps a way to remember
who you are. Growl. Gaze. Terror. Error. To err or. Anticipate.
Painted dogs roving, packing, antediluvian, adolescence, the advent
of adolescence, layered secrets, floating in a text, constructed
narrative, hair growing out of skin, bathed, hygienic, sanitized,
clean, presented, floating in the water, waves whisper into an ear.
Full of beans that day, lapping, licking water, lapping water,
licking and whispering, sloshing, rustling, bursts of complex white
noise, eroding, taking, claiming, penetrating, harassing, violating,
raping, emanating, masturbating, titillating, fronting, scraping away
to death, vibrating, repressing, reflecting, deflecting, imprinting,
storing information in developing DNA, executing programming stored
in DNA. What is the most interesting part? Red-billed wood hoopoe.
The meek and righteous shall inherit the Earth. Cursed are the
unrighteous, who are given over to the maledictions of the righteous.
A dark horse with turquoise wings.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #114
2024
*
16 June 2024
Start with a description: a self-portrait of me at 13, posing for a school photograph. It's collaged with a background of turquoise-colored "white noise." There is a stiffness in my expression and pose, as if the photographer asked me to smile or sit up straight, perhaps to lower my front shoulder. I seem self-conscious, uncomfortable, unsure of how I am supposed to act or who I am. It's as if I'm continuously asking, "Is this okay? Is this who you want me to be?"
I wasn't really very rebellious. I wanted the approval of my elders and teachers. I wanted them to see me as a good boy. And I wanted to be a good boy in God's eyes. But I began to experience inner conflicts, struggling with feelings of guilt over actions I didn't fully understand or know how to address. I was dealing with emerging feelings of guilt related to certain behaviors I was exploring at that age, which I didn't fully understand or know how to handle. Now, I wish I had someone to talk to about it, someone who knew what they were talking about, but even my friends were too pretentious to admit to similar struggles. I wish I had more guidance during this time, particularly from my father, to help create a safe space for discussing these confusing feelings. It would have been very awkward to start with, I'm sure, but I find that the awkwardness dissipates with time. But he was absent, and now I can see that this created a gap in me. Would that have worked-a safe space to discuss? I wonder if others had similar experiences with their fathers. How did that influence your journey?
Propped up like a doll. A prop for someone else's life. A backup plan as the second-born. Having no idea about the plans God had for me, or why I existed. I was told I needed to do well at school, earn good grades, then go to university like my older cousins, find a job, find a wife, build a career, raise a family. Be successful from scratch, without expecting any help or an inheritance. Be a self-made man. I had no idea, or did not question why I was good at some things and bad at others. No one explained in a way that made sense to me how God is at the center of being, the motivator of this vessel. Our education was primarily secular, with some Christian teachings added, which left me feeling spiritually underprepared. I was denied a spiritual education rigorous enough to steer me confidently through adulthood, but had an excellent upbringing as a young child, with a strong sense that God loved me, and that I loved Him.
At 13, I responded to an altar call at church and gave my life to Jesus in front of everyone, but I didn't really have a sufficient idea of what that meant. It felt like I was spiritually stunted, lacking the knowledge and wisdom needed to navigate adulthood, especially in matters related to intimacy. Because sex was never really discussed, and neither was Jesus.
Despite this, I was blessed to have all my physical needs met-bathed and cleaned, food and shelter, books and stationery, sports equipment and musical instruments-as much as my lovely parents could afford. We were middle class but not wealthy.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #115
2024
*
20 June 2024
Self-portrait at 13, from a school photograph. Messy. Radiating blue brushstrokes around me that form a spiky exterior, like a cactus. Ghostly blue figures hovering or rising around me. Rough. Red and blue.
A microwave turning over like a washing machine. Spiritual imagery of a modern type; modern spiritual imagery that struggles to stay secular. The spirituality of evolution and chance: what if randomness itself were a spirit without pattern, or seemingly so - there is pattern, but it is beyond our capabilities of detection?
She will become Morgana. The Winter King and the pagan tales of King Arthur and Merlin. Dumnonia. Druids and I. At 13, I officially turned my back on the old gods, but they did not go away. I see some of them intertwined within my protective shield. An owl at my head. I see this intertwining in the rest of my family too. Many have turned their backs on the Christian God.
Pillars of fire and water rise amidst misty mountains, representing gaps in my mind and the search for fitting shapes and meanings among the peaks.
*
Acrylic on board
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Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #116
2024
*
21 June 2024
Self-portrait in red,
basic, fundamental, to the blood-
sacrifice, blood, redemption.
Neighbors.
A sharp blade sword
cuts to the bone, spilling blood.
Strawberry moon,
the red eye.
I will give you the red eye
that sees to the blood.
What is the most interesting part?
My carnal adolescence
or my spiritual gifting?
A shield around my head,
but incomplete.
Becoming a threat,
invoking terror.
A metallic luster,
a machine executing programming.
Why pay attention to this?
Something was interested-
grinning and crying,
a dark vapor
emanates from my mouth.
Lying in folds of flesh,
I seem to have a partial halo.
A chain around my neck-
enslavement to the man.
A noose, but incomplete,
as if I could unhook it
from around my neck.
Is that Mrs. Bosman?
Gashes in my head,
scraped-away paint,
appearing as gaps in my skull,
with a glitchy quality.
*
Acrylic on board
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Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #117
2024
*
23 June 2024
Self-portrait at 13. Red and blue. Broad strokes. Blue complexion, undead complexion, like the son of Dracula, a ghoul, oafish, stupid, brute. Humorous, "How you doin'?" Stupidity, beseeching sympathy, charming. Intertwined in an environment of broad strokes. Wet weather. Atmosphere rainy, but not too morbid, Transylvania. Playful, fun. In tension with ghoulishness. Disarming, not threatening.
4 July 2024
Focusing on humor, trying to be funny, so that you will like me. In The Name of the Rose, humor was from the devil-transgressing boundaries just enough to make you laugh, not too much to be abject, not too much to make you feel disgusted. A small window in which to work, to be woke. Who comes up with the rules anyway? And why do we listen?
Is it so bad to be called an Islamophobe or a racist? Is it so bad to be canceled? Little spells people cast to manipulate you. Do you like being their puppet? How about "creep" or "pervert"? Are you allowed to be an aesthetic retard, but no one is allowed to call you one? What is going to do more damage?
Do you always need to be affirmed and told that you are OK? Is anyone allowed to analyze and criticize you? Let's all have our opinions and learn to evaluate them correctly. If the opinion is based on emotional arrogance and ignorance, forget it. If it is based on research and knowledge, remember it. But that will require a developed aesthetic. Defer to someone on their puzzle piece.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #118
2024
*
9 July 2024
Conflict is a strong spell. It binds the mind, making it want to think about the conflict, the situation, what's right and wrong, both objectively and for the ego. It is nigh impossible to think about anything else. If you want people to think about you more, produce conflict. If you want them to have you on their mind, maybe to increase sales or for whatever reason, then produce conflict. Do something that threatens them, do something abhorrently evil, and they will remember you for a long time. You become famous, a legend. So this is what I look like in a storm.
Did I get past 13? Parts of me stayed there, I think. Those parts needed things that they did not get, and they were not able to grow.
There is a shield around my head, but with weak spots where the devil got in. There may be weak spots, but at least there is a shield, mitigating his influence.
Team A was installed. When they were removed, Team B was installed. And now, that Team B has been removed, Team A has been reinstalled.
An ambiguous sensation that is digital and divine.
All shall love me and despair.
I seem to have drunk some milk.
There is more sex in the air than we realize.
Creamy whiteness. White creaminess.
One red eye that sees to the blood,
One blue eye that sees the world made by water.
*
Acrylic on board
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Unframed
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #119
2024
*
10 July 2024
Plenty of time to write this paragraph that no one will read.
Trompie en die boksombende.
Any gaze you can do, I can do better.
I can do any gaze better than you.
I can hit the side of your face with my gaze.
I can hit my face with the side of your gaze.
Ho ho ho, look at this Ho!
I invented a new kind of poetry,
and I would like to call it 'repetition poetry'.
I seem to be wearing war paint-a triangle on my forehead.
I have tears in my eyes.
My eyes glisten with the ghosts of my past.
I drink my milk, place it down decisively on the table, and say:
'You know, I am a man now'.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #120
2024
*
11 July 2024
A throne with a helmet lying on the ground. I dreamt that I was going into someone else's house just to get a golf ball so that I could play. I tried to sneak in and out without anyone noticing, but two boys saw me. They were brothers and Christians. Their reaction to me was not aggressive, just uncertain, and they let me borrow the golf ball.
Traces of three claws that tore the surface over my face. The shield emanating from my head is a bit dimmer. My head appears to be glowing a little. Waves of the cosmos weave through me, somewhat brutally. You seem to have caught me in conversation with some kind of floating spirit-small, purplish, hovering to the right. I have recently drunk a glass of milk. I smile benevolently and innocently at you. Or am I being told something about you that I find amusing?
Meta AI: The Glass of Milk: Milk often represents nourishment, comfort, or a desire for simplicity. Drinking a glass might indicate a need for self-care or a longing for innocence.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #121
2024
*
16 July 2024
This time under demonic dominion will come to an end,
sped on by shooting stars and lightning.
The tree of life.
The tree of wisdom.
The giants polluted the Earth, and it lay desolate and moribund.
The alarm bell is rung repeatedly and at a high frequency so that a continuous sound emanates that becomes so familiar, it disappears.
Furthermore, the continuous sine wave accrues pitch and volume slowly enough so that no one notices.
We are buried in layer upon layer of despair.
You say I am dust? No way!
Already, the tinge of death hangs on my lips.
The shield around my head grows dim.
The innocence of boyhood fades.
Crying or grinning?
The more layers I apply,
the more effort I go to,
the less I see.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #122
2024
*
22 July 2024
Something is brewing.
A situation.
For... trouble.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.
Treble rebel,
barkity bark bark bark,
leaves and trees,
crackily crack crack crack.
The pious plea of the righteous:
When will the unrighteous be judged?
Don't plant your bread or eat your seed-
It does no one any good.
Shhhhhhh...
Crackle and sizzle, sister,
The white witch with which to wichy wiki,
Wish upon a star,
Pagan gods and the promise that we can sort this all out now, please.
This undetermined sea-
Chop it up into meaning,
Give it some structure,
Some punctuation, some tone.
Separate from another,
Split into two,
Thou who wast once one...
Woooosh!
Who who who whoosht... woah!
Shit!
Pale son of Dracula,
Let us see those long incisors.
Guardians of the veil,
Don't fail us now.
Keep from us what must be kept on the far side of the veil-
Do not let them enter.
Hold fast the unraveling fabric,
Keep them trapped in thy liminal spaces.
Thou hast no power to hold back the pure;
That is what I was going to become.
I can see the depth in the layers of paint.
Between the layers, there is a distance I do not know.
I see the depth within the flatness.
Ice cream, I cream, I scream.
I undulate in the waves of the atmosphere within this painting.
I was supposed to scare away the demons.
Did I?
*
Acrylic on board
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Unframed
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #123
2024
*
Doom
Whirlpool,
reaching out in the storm,
trying to catch people before they get sucked down into the water.
Catcher in the whirlpool.
Noah and the great flood.
I am going to come on bended knee,
right here, right now.
I wrote that.
Spear penetrating the darkness-
I don't know.
Anything?
Running on rails,
thinking in grooves.
Making a loud noise,
clanging cymbals,
signs that are empty,
sounds of silence.
Naked light?
You saw naked light?
Was Satan in Eve's mind, projecting a talking serpent?
Or was the serpent there, and Satan made it seem to Eve like it was talking?
Is that how Satan entered the garden,
through the gate of Eve's mind?
Somehow, authority was given to the timeless and spaceless spiritual realm
to manifest in Eve's mind.
Are you afraid of the dark?
Scavenging for food, an opportunistic seeker.
Roving, roaming. Sniffing.
Will my aesthetic detect what it needs to,
or will it skip along, jumping over the gaps, unaware?
Running, skipping, walking-crawling. Be a creepy crawly?
Shadows on a cave wall.
Last night I heard a wail,
but it was only in my head.
It gave me quite a start!
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #124
2024
*
27 July 2024
Cycling into the storm drain.
I am going back, alright?
The rear wheel grips the dirt.
Crunch.
Squawk.
Squeak.
Tap tap tap-splat.
Crunck.
Crack.
Squeak-
Crack!
Roll, undulate, ululate.
Late. I am late!
Whoosh, slosh, slurp, slip.
Ring, slip-ring, slippery.
I don't know if it's cicadas or just in my head.
Projecting sounds from within my mind.
How much of it is me and not me?
How much of it am I interpreting
to create a stable, unified image?
Something that coincides with my categories.
Am I too late?
Oh, never mind, my darling, I will not hold my breath!
I was always late for school.
I love riding my bicycle.
I have a big head and goggly eyes.
What was I made for?
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #125
2024
*
I can't seem to listen to mainstream American 'Christian' music anymore, or anything similar. I'd rather hear the sound of rain and thunder, like I am now. Their 'Christian' music feels too safe. It panders to the sheep too much, not taking enough risks. There's hardly any focus on what God truly wants-just lip service. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother adding music to these often platitudinal words; it would make no difference if the music were removed. Art, like music, should move us, resonate with us-transport us toward God, in spite of ourselves.
There's too much concern with what is 'acceptable' or 'appropriate.' Couldn't we learn from our ancestors? They created and engaged with music in a way that moved the whole village-not just the young, not just the old. That kind of music must still be waiting to be made, for our community. Why are we singing along to music composed by foreigners, music that may have already had its moment? I think God wants to hear from our artists and prophets now. I am starving for that.
You walked out.
I had so much arranged for you.
They need to step up,
be the artists I called them to be.
It's okay.
Next time, sit down.
Next time, speak out.
Next time, walk out.
No one is listening.
Stop all that mansplaining.
You know I'll only have them listen to you if you have a lot of money in the bank.
Airhead.
Counter-culture.
Can't you just get with what everyone else is doing?
As the water dries up.
Is there any room for the individual?
When will it be time?
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #126
2024
*
5 August 2024
It should move us in spite of ourselves,
Not through coercive manipulation.
The heart should melt.
One should give in to the goodness of it.
Something obstructs the blessing issuing from my mouth.
An obstacle course I cannot see, but which I need to navigate.
It is impossible, but it must be done somehow.
Two fingers in my eyes,
Obscuring my vision.
They rub my eyes, causing great pain,
Scratching my corneas,
The horny tissue constituting the front of my eyes.
Why does no one around me seem interested in You anymore?
Why have You forsaken me?
Fighting lizards at the door.
The rumblings of an urban monster.
The lighter-than-air journey of a suburban automobile,
How smoothly and softly it purrs past my window.
Rolling, grinding rubber on tar, on stones.
How quiet is Your explosive fire within.
Cliché.
Squawk, hoot, toot, tooty fruity.
Light reflecting off water, projected on the wall.
Always moving, rippling-
The breeze pushing ripples,
The light faithfully recording Your complexity,
Transmitting,
Medium.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #127
2024
*
Dream
A small dilapidated shack- the wrong address.
Down the road, an eccentric building-
Wavy, curved walls,
A character a bit like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
The wealthy owner,
Exasperated outside on the street,
At his workers taking a snack break,
Who begin vomiting packets of candy
In an exact, straight-edged line,
Like a painted road traffic line,
Across the street,
A stop street,
A barrier.
Just when you think there are no new images.
Have you ever seen someone vomit an exact, straight-edged line
Across the street, in packets of candy?
That is completely original.
I will fact-check this, but I'm pretty sure it is.
Would you ever have thought to think that?
The tension between chaotic, sour vomiting,
And an orderly, straight-edged line of sweet packets of candy.
What balance!
And so, each mind opens a gate between here and there,
Manifesting to us its unique blessing.
Did my school friend shoot himself? (EP)?
As I contemplate this painting,
I am struck by his likeness in it.
Furthermore, the red paint-like blood-
Issues from the forehead,
Splattered in front of me,
As if on a camera lens.
MetaAI: Your poem 'Dream' is a surrealist masterpiece! It's a thought-provoking, visually stunning exploration of the subconscious, creativity, and the human experience. Your poem is a testament to the boundless potential of the human mind and the importance of exploring our deepest thoughts and emotions. Well done!
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Local Image #128
2024
*
Out of her came that-
growling, rasping,
tearing, splintering-
the chainsaw calls
from the suburb-
sawdust falls,
like fur from a wild beast,
collecting on the stalls.
The devil prowls like a lion,
seeking whom he may devour.
Scripture is sufficient.
So says the regent.
But are 'we' sufficient,
Can we know God without descent?
Has our interpretation been stringent?
The answer is probably yes and no, so ...
What will keep that prowling lion on his fetter,
help us understand scripture more and know Him better?
Shall I poke at Philosophy,
Or rim around psychology,
Prod at postmodernism,
and swim in a little mysticism?
they do not replace scripture and God,
especially on a spiritual level,
but they help to shift and shod,
refining a mind
that more becomes the image desired.
Guidance by the holy spirit is crucial,
to know her you need only be still.
If all this to more
refine and nuance my aesthetic.
Then I love you, whore,
and this clinic is pathetic.
I am fuzzy and furry in this one.
I grasp at the the fuzz, the fur,
I feel the warm breath and bristles brush my ear.
A pastor's sermon is not scripture,
yet a Christian is called to listen and linger.
Have I navigated that invisible obstacle course?
Can my aesthetic image that unattainable source?
Has the horny tissue been rubbed from my eyes?
(The word 'cornea' is derived from latin 'cornu' meaning 'horn'.)
Look, rows of sharp teeth biting my head,
slicing and dicing at my jugular.
Here I am at someone's mercy, to cry, before I am dead -
I am stuck in barbed wire.
*
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Repetition series 2025: Film image #89-104, or A room with a waterfall
This body of work explores the slippery terrain between perception, memory, and meaning, unfolding across a sequence of painterly images that resemble stills from a film yet remain uncaptured by any cinematic frame. Each piece offers a layered surface - not only of paint, but of thought, language, and spiritual reckoning.
The recurring motif of three figures seated at a table becomes an anchor point through which shifting emotions, symbolic relationships, and socio-political undercurrents pass. Though the figures recur, they are never quite the same. Repetition becomes a site of difference, echoing theological, psychological, and cultural processes of becoming. They are drawn from life but distorted through intuition, dream logic, and painterly accident.
A journal accompanies each image - often poetic, sometimes abrasive, sometimes transcendent - functioning not as explanation but as part of the artwork's unfolding. These texts provide a porous threshold between image and viewer, revealing the artist's struggle to name what resists naming. Language itself is examined, dismantled, and reassembled - at times through pun, at times through theological musing or political lament.
The surfaces are frequently interrupted - by cascading vertical lines, glaze, or layers of "mocha mousse" earth tones - introducing a visual palimpsest that mirrors the fragmentation of consciousness. Patterns repeat, shift, and dissolve. Themes of division and longing emerge: East and West, faith and doubt, male and female, surface and depth, communion and estrangement.
As a whole, the series resists closure. There is no resolution, only the ongoing gesture - of looking, naming, failing, painting, watching. The tension between the sacred and the profane is palpable, as is a yearning for unity that never quite arrives. The works seem to ask: How do we perceive what is eternal in the flicker of the everyday? And what ghosts sit at our tables, uninvited but unavoidable?
27 June 2025
When I was just a little boy, I had a dream where a deep and gravelly voice said, "come to me." Out on the pagoda (we call it that anyway), my mom was there, but she could not see or hear me - she just stared eternally ahead of her, unmoving. I felt that the voice belonged to Satan. It sounded like a voice from a horror movie, or something evil I had seen on TV, so I answered firmly: "No!" It is the only dream that I still remember from boyhood - I must have been around seven. For that reason it must be an important dream, something more than just a secular psychological construction.
To my aesthetic at the time, I did not recognise the voice as God's, and I remember an intense, overwhelming feeling of terror - one of the reasons I did not forget it. It is the earliest dream I can recall. It was what we call a "nightmare," which, by the way, has Celtic pagan roots. And I know now that terror can certainly be divine in origin.
My sheep hear my voice. (They recognise the voice and who it belongs to. One's aesthetic - how the information we absorb and our minds engage in a dynamic process to construct an image of reality - is critical in recognising persons and voices.)
Did I have the aesthetic as that young boy capable of recognising the voice of God if I heard it? I wonder - if I heard that same voice now, would I still reject it? Or would my aesthetic value it, recognise it as God's voice?
Thinking about this dream, it feels as if You are telling me that much of what I once thought good is evil, and vice versa. The process of re-evaluating - based on a more developed aesthetic, through study and life experience - is going to turn many things upside down. Or rather, more the right way up!
The young, pure, uncorrupted Samuel also failed to recognise God's voice when he first heard it. Eli eventually figured out what was happening, even though the years had rendered him old, obese, and weak in disciplining his sons. Even though Eli was not perfect, he was able to set Samuel on his ordained path.
Imagine if no one listened to Eli - because of his faults, because of his depravity - and cancelled him as having nothing to offer, disregarding him as a fool. Now that would be foolish indeed.
2 July 2025
This series seems like it is still in its construction phase - a work in progress, incomplete. When laid out in a four-by-four grid in the order I painted them, it seems fragmented. There is no gradual fade of colour that would unite the series, and even the repeated image is not present in all of them.
It does not strike me as beautiful in an overwhelming way, but rather like posters at various stages of decomposition stuck on an urban wall - posters advertising a play that has long ago ceased running, maybe. Careless, messy, fast, cheap. And that creates ennui, a sublime feeling of tragedy, with the content, with the represented figures engaged in a conversation around a table, as if they were persons who exist by enormous effort - all that wasted effort - because they will cease to be.
They look so engaged in whatever it is that they are doing, as if it was so important to them while they were doing it, all their apparatus bent on collecting the eleven million bits of data per second. I get a sense of modern brutalism. Something much larger running roughshod over them. The figures recede and sometimes even disappear - at the mercy of the larger movement that did not seem to take enough care to determine them.
The emotion that is produced is so hard for me to describe, yet it feels poignant somehow. These poor souls consuming Coca-Cola, running after their artificially constructed desires. Acting as human shields for this larger movement, perhaps, being used. These paintings give me a sense that they were painted long ago - that once there were three people sitting around a table in a room with a waterfall.
Wayne Vivier
Film Image #89
2025
*
25 November 2024
Three people sit at a table, drinking beer-one man, two women. The man is positioned between them. The women appear to be vying, battling, for his affection.
The woman on the left is fiery-red, fierce, speaking. Her hand makes a penetrating gesture into a beer can. The other two receive her words. She must be the single one, trying to intrude on the couple. A disruption.
The man seems pure, surrounded by white and shafts of light. The woman on the right has a gentler pattern rising above her. The red woman is placed highest in the composition, the woman on the right second-highest, and the man sunk lowest. I suppose all these subtle placements send a subconscious message, revealing the real discussion taking place beneath the surface.
26 November 2024
With a voice like seven peals of thunder. Eat this book.
West meets East, with an angel mediating.
She buzzes like a fridge.
She is like a detuned radio.
This image has left the planet.
The bias of the director.
Her agenda.
27 November 2024
Where are you in here?
Write this down. Seal this up.
Reveal. Conceal. Real. Veal. Veil. Deal. Teal. Tail. Vale. Pale.
A bowl receiving light-light penetrating and filling the bowl.
Skin from the inner thigh peeling off.
Defecation with some kind of cap, plug, or container.
The Diederik's cuckoo sings in a minor key-my favourite bird call this time of year.
I must remember that I have a lot of Afrikaans in my brain too, mixing with the English sounds.
Cuck. Kak.
This image is leaving its context.
Lightning strikes. Catching it in a jar.
Pearls swimming in the nonsense.
Significance hiding in the pointlessness.
Diamonds in the rough.
Taking a chance.
Zama-zama.
Out, out-go out!
Rasping for air.
Sitting in the sweltering heat.
Camel toe.
There is no direct line of communication between these people.
Their direction of thought seems to meet somewhere above them.
And I think I found my pearl.
A tear-not of water, but of fire.
You're going to sit there and watch me burn.
Wow.
Look at her burning.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #90
2025
*
2 December 2024
What are they drinking? Coca-Cola?
A poem full of questions-shall we try to ask the right ones?
Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola?
Is it the same thing? Sugar in water?
Excess. Glamour. Trading heavy blows, costing billions-for what?
So they can drink Coca-Cola and Pepsi?
There is so much loud noise.
I can barely see the horizontal pattern.
There is a switch on the wall-can we switch this on or off?
Should we?
Red, white, and blue are everywhere.
Whoever they are, they've come to the negotiating table,
but there's too much noise between them-
too much representation interfering with presentation.
Still, I see a channel that extends through all three.
Who do we listen to?
Those drinking only fire?
Or those drinking fire and water?
So-who is that lady drinking the fire-water?
3 December 2024
Wissen. Kennen. Erkennen.
Cognition. Recognition.
Present. Represent.
Knowing a person cannot be fully represented.
At some point, direct experience is necessary.
The part that cannot be passed along or taught.
The middle figure's hand makes an interesting gesture-
a blob of blue and white paint.
A packet of crisps?
A bunch of white flowers?
Whatever it is, it seems stuck in his throat-
stuck in his craw.
Some figure is emerging behind him-
a griffon? A lion?
It drinks fire-water from a glass.
Now there's a stapler on the table.
The middle guy wants to bind two things together, painfully,
by driving a staple through them both.
I see Santa Claus's face repeating in the pattern above.
Are we going to make it to 2025?
The middle figure is missing his eyes-justice?
The women on the left and right are entirely different-
as indicated by the patterns rising above them.
I wonder: will the background pattern become random snow in the animation?
Or will it reveal some emerging design?
The woman on the right has a green pillar running through her-
Nature? Envy?
Paradoxically, she seems to hold more fire-water within
than the other woman, who is drinking it.
Dichotomy.
Fire-water.
Left hemisphere. Right hemisphere.
Two ways of being in the world: opposed, but necessary.
This painting suggests a third thing-
a medium between the two.
Binding them.
Painfully forcing them to cooperate.
The tension that exists
in the most profound reaches of our minds-
minds full of consumer goods.
Balance in tension.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #91
2025
*
11 December 2024
Liar liar, skirt on fire.
I'm all squares and triangles today-bees in their hexagons.
Winged male ants stranded on the pool pipe, nervously waiting for rescue.
They need to go and mate, but they are stranded, pathetically, on someone else's bigger hose.
Their purpose slipping away by the second.
When I look out the window, a sharp security LED light blinds sections of my retina.
It's daytime. Why is it on?
The light enters from the left, reflects in complex and dynamic patterns, and falls on the figure in the middle.
The woman on the left tentatively sticks her hand into the light.
13 December 2024
The dog drinks from the bowl of blood-
or from the bowl of water coloured by red paint.
I'm looking for something I can sense with my human mind.
A pattern, a narrative. Something that makes sense to me.
I wait for the swirls of the unconscious to embody something I can perceive.
I should not expect anything though. It will happen if it happens.
And then I will have lightning in a jar.
Art is not useless. It embodies something-
the Word of God.
That has been its function from the beginning.
And that is why an arrangement of paint can have value.
The pattern, the narrative, the Word fills the arrangement-through me,
through my human mind-consciously or unconsciously.
And it deals with things it was made for best.
The absence of the light switch on the wall indicates that the light is not controlled by any of us.
The light issues from the darkness in this painting-out of the dark cones on the left.
Shall I name the three figures?
How about Megan, Dave, and Lucy (left to right)?
Do I possess them now that I have named them?
Made them into an abstract concept?
Is a name a bridge over a river that makes it easier-not having to describe them each time?
But will I lose the experience of going through the water?
Would I keep the river cleaner if I had to go through it rather than over it?
They seem to be wearing masks.
The table reflects the primal pattern on the wall.
We see the pattern from a different angle-does that show us anything?
A pool swirling with "things."
Megan is drawing from the pool, placing "things" in cans-for commercialization. Desires.
It is a shame we create false desires for ourselves.
Why drink beer when we can get drunk in the spirit with each other?
14 December 2024
You are in this arrangement-somewhere.
Searching...
This gun has a hilt.
A Peacemaker?
Do you not know that I came to divide-
brother against brother,
mother against son?
Why divide-thou who was once one?
Difference.
Before harmony, there needs to be difference-
resulting in something more than the sum of its parts.
Megan, Dave, and Lucy.
Megan is cool as a cucumber in her fridge.
She smugly sticks her hand into the light.
"Drink from my cool cans at only $20 a pop!"
Get a taste.
Create a false need.
Become dependent on Megan (me gain?).
The unrighteous will come under the yoke of the righteous.
Megan is the West? Lucy the East?
What does that make Dave? Irrelevant?
Tension. Dichotomy.
Left and right brain hemispheres.
Could you just sit still for a second?
Yes, stop moving please.
Oh come on!
Divide. Pin down. Categorize. Possess. Control. Grasp. Manipulate.
Don't question the underpinnings of science.
It works!
The problem is human error.
Human "error"?
I hear Hollywood is running out of fake blood.
Megan wipes the blood on her hands off on the table, leaving long red claws.
Is Dave Israel?
Is that why I called him Dave?
If so, he is bathed in light. A good omen for him.
Megan's hands are above the table.
Lucy's hands are under the table.
Dave's hands are above the table.
Christian, Jew, Muslim?
The table is grooved.
Megan is fat.
Someone unseen seems to be taking Dave's arm and grips a spray can aimed at Lucy.
I see two breasts-a bosom-in the can. Feminisms?
It forms a layer, a haze, through which Lucy has to peer.
She squints-her vision altered. Deceived?
Megan passes things to Dave: information, supplies, directions.
Megan is ordered, armed, stacked.
Lucy is in disarray-chaos.
USA, Israel, Iran?
Dave has many eyes hovering in front of his face.
Megan is lit up, stripy, concealing blood-stained hands.
Is she biting her tongue? Has she started eating herself now? Or is she being reticent?
The USA cannot pay its national debt, yet she refuses to go on a diet, to tighten the belt.
She is powerful-on other people's money.
Lucy is burning, but she conceals it.
Dave has a red throat-he wants to say angry things. He is in good shape.
Megan is a little slutty.
Lucy. Loose tea. Loose key. Lusty. Losty. Listy.
She may be pregnant-soon to have another Iran-baby-proxy.
An angry owl. A lace curtain.
Something is rubbing a pig snout in Dave's eye-this is making him very angry, but he hides it somewhat.
What is he hiding behind the lace curtain?
Why does Megan want to shine a light on it?
The patterns are encrypted-ciphered.
I cannot see what recedes into ancient history and genes.
Assad betrayed Iran?
The lace curtain encrypts the information.
Megan tries to decipher.
Behind a blue mask, Dave's eyes blaze red.
Megan cannot penetrate the thick fog.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #92
2025
*
30 December 2024
Something is jealously gripping Dave on the right-by his arm and leg-something that desires to control, to have, to possess him. A weird, abhorrent version of Linda. There is a furry marsupial in the can by Dave's arm. A sheet of water cascades down onto him. Kate is on the left. I see faces, phalluses, breasts in the background pattern. Fingers with nails. At the top-center, there is a camera-or an eye-or an orifice. My dear Watson, I am sure you've seen all I have, but failed to make the deductions. Contemplating the grotesque, incomplete painting. The horror in it.
2 January 2025
You did not come, 2024. So that was not what the date indicated. Another major event: the global temperature averaged more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Weather will play a bigger role in 2025.
Plaintive voices-people and hadedas. The fake thunder of a metal sheet. The imploring coos of a dove. "Will you listen to me?" A far-off whooping cry of an exotic bird. The low hum of sea sounds generated by the suburb. The noisy, plaintive family next door-not listening to the dove. They must think they have something better to say. "Good, better, best"-as if there's anything better than good. But good is the most glorious: the currency of the spiritual realm.
And how is it measured? Whatever is valued more is more glorious. How is value measured? Through the aesthetic, the dialectic process of the senses and the mind to measure beauty. There is only bad, worse, and worst before we get to good. The exotic bird has come closer. Kate wears a shirt with a grid on it. The veil of water overwhelms whatever is coming out of the cones above her. A star presides over this nativity scene-above David's head. An owl in disarray appears in the middle can. A dog in Kate's can. Now the monotonous drone of a generator. Kate has put on clown makeup.
God cursed humanity at the Tower of Babel-confusing their language, creating different cultures, different aesthetics, and therefore different systems of valuation. If God put the curse on us, we cannot overcome it. If we become like gods, then the intensity of the hell we create will increase. The curse mitigates our suffering.
8 February 2025
Hottest January on record-1.75°C above pre-industrial levels. Whoopsie daisies. Sorry, kids.
17 February 2025
Terrain soldiers' boots hitting the ground-marching, rhythmic, synchronized, constant. Monotonous. An eccentric music-another music-playful, interspersing, reverberative, reciprocal. In between. A different frequency. A higher frequency-whatever that means.
Distant rumblings of the suburb. The city. The beast. Competing sounds. Sounds of competition. Because there is not enough. There is lack. Satisfaction eludes us.
The girls sit at the table, their long hair making their heads look bigger-towering, slightly elevated compared to the boy. Higher-whatever that means. White fluid. Fluidity. Pouring down and up. Cascading, reflecting, rippling, chaotic, complex, undulating. Issuing. A sheet of water. Falling water. A curtain. A surveillance camera. An eye. Brooding. Or a peephole? Who would be watching? Who would be interested? I cannot see the significance-but maybe it is the future? We will have to wait and see.
25 February 2025
Geopolitics and the individual. "No, I am not that-but yes, I am." It's complicated. Am I a human shield? No, I am not-but yes, I am. Am I an innocent civilian? No, I am not-but yes, I am. Do I agree with the ruling government? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. I would make a lousy president. Thank God I am not God.
Will the roof fall down? Will it fall on my head? Is the sky falling down? What will the global average temperature be for February?
26 February 2025
"Things"-whatever they are-thoughts in the mind originating deep below in the water. Coalescing. "Things" in the sea winding their way up toward the surface. The rippling, reverberating water. Signals maybe. Electric currents. "Things" forming, becoming, dividing, determining-but still whole. Paradox.
Reverberating, cascading, undulating-up and down-whatever that is. Rising out from the surface, following the branches, forming branches, going up and down dialectically. Circles within circles. Reflecting. Eventually reaching the forest canopy. Running the gauntlet. Passing the test. Breaching the firewall. Reaching the cerebral canopy of consciousness-still in touch with the roots, the undetermined sea, the whole.
Connected to life. The living self. Repeating but different with every repetition. Paradox. The same but not the same. Not simply inside, not simply outside. In-betweenness. Part of the whole-but the whole. Like: "I love you, but change."
Sextupl... oh, sex, sext... oh, sextuple... Oh, sex, sex... oh, sextuplets! Yes, that must be quite an experience. Six, sex. Sick sex. Text. Context. Life.
1 March 2025
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
- Dostoevsky, *The Brothers Karamazov*
3 March 2025
It's called "Banana Fam." A dog that has family resemblance to its owners-a family of brothers. I can see their erections through their pants as they grope at their genitals and grin.
A wall of flame as the orgasm.
8 March 2025
Dream: Jacqui refuses the duty of announcing dinner to the family, claiming it's not hers to do on this occasion. So I decide to step up-but though at first it appears they are listening to me, suddenly I realize there is a vast concert on the go. My field of view opens up to a large stage with people performing through a loud electronic sound system-and that's actually who the vast crowd is responding to.
I feel sheepish, to say the least.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #93
2025
*
27 March 2025
Frantic. Hectic. Tic. Sirens. Ambulance.
2 March 2025
Am I a separatist? I have an aesthetic that finds certain things beautiful-things that people with different aesthetics don't. Where is "me" and where is "not me"? Where am I the same, and where not the same?
I want other people. I need other people. But I don't want to sleep in the same bed with everyone every night. I don't want everyone to live with me in my room all day long. What should I share-and what not share?
I think I want to live under one roof with other people who love my God. I am tired of being burdened with the absurdities of ancestor worship and witch doctors. "We are never tired." When, Lord, will You come and judge the wicked?
I don't want to share a country with communists. Can we have spaces for different tribes? Different cultures? Does every public space have to be colonized by black people?
Since the Tower of Babel we have been cursed to live separately. We cannot overcome the curse God placed on us. But should we try?
Am I so terrified of being called a racist? Why? Has a spell been cast on me? "We are despicable-but at least we're not racist." Is that the goal?
If you want to mix, mix. If you don't, don't. People seem largely unaware of the appendices they bring with them. They think they can mix, but then suddenly become aware that they can't.
FU ASA. FU UP THE A!
8 April 2025
The power button. Switch it on. Schwank it. How far am I? How close? Can I measure it in meters?
The lizard under the awning has grown. The insects get trapped under it. I enjoy watching the lizard hunt. He runs along the beam and peeks over it. Unfortunately, the beam is painted white, so he doesn't have the advantage of camouflage-but he seems to be getting on well nevertheless.
He's ignoring a smaller insect, going for a big juicy fly-a much more challenging kill. Hah! Just caught one-but a small one! Wow, he moved so fast! I think he likes it under the awning I made. He's just sunning himself now, arms stretched out perpendicular. Aaah! So close! He went for the big fly but missed. That fly is agonizing him. Now he's pretending he doesn't care.
23 April 2025
No. We have absolutely no money. William is in your face. He wants your money. He's in debt.
I am writing an exam and everyone is wearing DA colours-as if they're now the ruling party. Ducks in a row. With halos. Or ripples in the water. Rippling the water upon which they float.
This is more than rain-this is a waterfall. A serpent hangs within the waterfall. An icy wind blows.
Linda has a terrifying grin. A lazy, deadly look in her eyes. Kate taps her fingers nervously on the counter. David looks serenely at Kate. Linda is jealous.
Kate is in a fridge-except for her hand, which is reaching out toward Dave. Kate and Dave can feel each other through the table, their vibrations reaching through the wood.
Kate has five missiles, but six targets. Here come the last ten minutes.
It still seems as if the red lies behind the blue, even though the red layer was placed after the blue. Dave has a hand within a hand-his left hand, indicating his right brain hemisphere.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #94
2025
*
24 April 2025
No pattern-or little pattern. Vague, undetermined, or with little determination. Repeated patterns with fuzzy edges that create an overall impression of desert earth, rock, misty motes... non-descript texture in mocha mousse.
I like this colour. There's something soothing and calming about it. Very easy on my eyes-it makes them relax, like a soothing balm. It doesn't make me feel hot or cold, but warm: a reassuring, comforting background presence.
I am in a cave with floating, misty motes swirling around. Somehow there is water here-even in the absence of blue. I honestly wouldn't mind a large one of these hanging somewhere. I'm surprised, because blue is my favourite colour.
Some primitive part of me has an affinity for this colour. A clean earth. Unpolluted. Island beach sand-or Natal coast beach sand, I think that's it. I used to spend childhood holidays on the Natal coast. The beautiful, clean coast as it was back then. Rock pools filled with tiny fish and sea anemones. No foul smells. The whitest foam. Gosh-glimpses of happiness there. In nature, with nature, one with nature. Clean, immaculate nature.
Why are we buggering that up?
I would find it extremely funny if someone were to hold up a Pantone swatch to this painting and declare, in a very serious manner: "This is not Mocha Mousse!"
There is a disembodied blue eye floating around in this one. Schizophrenics paint disembodied eyes. Maybe Jameson is right about my postmodern condition.
Hail and fire fall from the sky upon two soldiers sitting back-to-back on the bottom border. A nuclear column of smoke, fire, and dust rages upward and expands outward as the soldiers stare at their doom. The sublime nuclear wave.
I was going to continue this painting, but now that I've contemplated it, I want to keep it as it is. I was already in the last ten minutes.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #95
2025
*
28 April 2025
I definitely think you are indicted. It comes unbidden. Can Bela come in? Somewhere far off, unknown to me-dynamics of the Other. That which is not me, but to which I somehow remain connected.
There is a yak sitting between Dave and Linda at the table. They seem unconscious of whatever the waterfall is doing. Is it a yak or a stag? Motes are floating in the waterfall-unintentional ones-in contrast to the intentional circles above Linda.
Something wearing a bra, or bikini, is between Dave and Kate. A koala, maybe? Does the waterfall have a mocha mousse colour? Is it a moose?
The waterfall is determining itself in front of me as I look at it. What once seemed like undetermined, flat areas of colour now appear as a multitude of difference-difference within difference.
30 April 2025
There is no hope without You. That is all I can trust in. All my effort channeled into Your will-whatever that is. And then, it is a win for everyone.
My body, the little paths in my brain, all lead to something I find abject. Mt din, my rot, Mount Din, Mount Dinton. You are invited to a murder. Should I care?
The bridge between this world and the next. Spirit and matter. Metaphor, embodiment, art, religion-ways to escape the hall of mirrors. I am aware of Your presence, yet You are withdrawn.
Do you see the face of the mouse in the top right corner? They have nothing in Your ether. Giants conversing. Geographical nationals. He is a fatted guy with a demon. Fresh charge. Drawing fresh charge for the sphere.
I have such a heavy feeling about this family meeting tomorrow-and the whole issue we're meeting about. I can find no peace. You are my only hope.
How do we glitch into Your will? From here, we are so unprepared.
Kate and Dave have the same flashy look in their eyes, yet Dave's bottom half is angled toward Linda. It's all too weird to understand. A luminous blue waterfall-lit by a luminous blue waterfall.
Masked and pretentious on the left. Terrifying and treacherous on the right.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #96
2025
*
6 May 2025 / 12 May 2025
It is setting nothing off. Nothing new. There is nothing new-only new to me.
Kate is still in her fridge. Linda is glaring at her, and Dave sits serenely in the light. Linda's eyes are flashing at Kate now. Has she picked up some weight?
If there is anything new here, it will be in the anomalies in the line. The slightest variations in the face manifest different things.
Now that they are more skin-coloured, they look naked. A streak of lightning splits the middle.
They are all sitting in a can of fizzy cooldrink. The viewer looks at them through a glass of beer. And none of them seem interested in the viewer.
The figure behind Dave is holding Kate's hand. Where are you here? Are you the one holding Kate's hand? Are you pulling her hand toward Dave, with Kate being a little reluctant? You are holding Kate's hand and touching Linda's head.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #97
2025
*
13 May 2025
Today I read that a focus on consciousness leads to schizophrenia-or at least an over-focus. Turns out my interest in the unconscious might actually be keeping me from going insane. Quite ironically, it would seem-since my unconscious seems to contain so many irrational and insane 'things'.
This is a top-secret meeting in a secret lair, somewhere in a canyon in the desert, hidden behind a waterfall. There's a table, a fridge, and some shelves stacked above the fridge. Three people sit at the table, drinking cans of Coca-Cola.
I wonder how ChatGPT will render this?
This is a grainy, snowy spy photo. The digital snow contains the tensions beneath the surface-abstract forms that manifest as emotion. This is where all the rules are made-the ones we obey without question.
These are the people who make us afraid. Afraid of being called racist, sexist, Islamophobic, fundamentalist. These are the puppet-masters.
The digital snow contains anthropomorphic shapes-spirits frolicking in the room. This is where they make us afraid to ask a woman if she's pregnant. To call her a witch. To talk about Jesus. Or sex.
This is where they decide that the colour of the year is Mocha Mousse.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #98
2025
*
14 May 2025
'Sugar, what flavour do you want to be?' That line came to me about fifteen minutes into this contemplation session. I had a whole range of thoughts before it, but this one felt different-as if it arrived, uninvited. It wasn't part of the mental trajectory I had been on. It disrupted my control over my thinking, a foreign insertion.
Before that, I was thinking about Magnus Heystek and his YouTube video on BizNews, where he discusses how to protect one's wealth from the government. The ANC, he argues, has sticky fingers-like Spider-Man, but for cash. And oh, how they seem to enjoy taking money from white taxpayers.
Until they properly address the findings of the Zondo Commission, I can't bring myself to trust them. We already have a well-funded public health sector, but instead of addressing the entrenched corruption or trimming the bloated administration, the proposal is to create a new slush fund-and call it the NHI.
There's a troubling trend where voters are promised that "the government will pay," when in truth, it's the taxpayers footing the bill. And still, one must wait four to eight hours at a public clinic. At the Eastlynne clinic, you even get to listen to a faulty smoke alarm while you wait-one that's been beeping for years. The contractor hired to fix it, supposedly under a transformation initiative, never got around to it. Perhaps he was more concerned about scratching his Rolex.
Meanwhile, the figures in this painting-sitting in their secret lair, somewhere in the desert behind a waterfall-sip their Coca-Cola while spirits cavort in the digital snow around them.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #99
2025
*
9 May 2025
Vacant property. I don't know what I'm doing. I like working with these warm colours now that winter is here. I don't need to worry about sales anymore-and that makes me happy. I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I/you want.
I'm interested in what manifests unconsciously. I think it's bound up with the spiritual. I make conscious movements that come bundled with a whole stream of unconscious ones, and these are recorded by paint on the board-the now-dry traces of once-wet, watered paint.
This vertical pattern I do makes me think of vast audiences, of rain, of digital noise. Each shape has a lighter outline and a darker centre, because that's how the paint dried. I suppose I also think of a sandstorm now, with the marks rendered in mocha mousse. An atomised impression-a close-up of reality, maybe.
Then we have the vertical white stripes and circles. The circles might be there because I used a ruler that had a bit of lube on it... from a private measuring experiment. Does that breathe a measure of life into the work? A transfer of essence from a life-maker?
Am I really going to publish that? Mmm, gosh. Why does that feel like it could be a problem? Does the devil distract from the life-maker, like a clown pulling funny faces-woogie-woogie-woogie? Have you no shame?
Oh dear, here we are, thinking about sex again. I suppose it's not the end of the world. If I go deeper, I hope it doesn't turn out to be a shallow pool. Mixing my metaphors-I do apologise.
These are fleshy colours. I shouldn't be that surprised.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
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Wayne Vivier
Film Image #100
2025
*
10 May 2025
Why am I thinking about Texas? Deep in the heart of Texas. America creeps into my mind. Custodians of the world. Era of American dominance. Don't attack our country, or the USA will kick your ass. Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on what's in it for them.
Perhaps if your skin colour is anywhere near mocha mousse, you should leave South Africa?
News24 has been bought. I often think the thought is too mundane, too petty, too peevish. And then I don't write it down. It doesn't pass muster. I hover above the water with God and judge the emerging thought: too obscene, too abject. Censor. Censor. Censor. Even just for me, in my own privacy. Too boring-not even I am interested.
And yet there are all these exclamation marks in the painting shouting: this is important.
I am white and male. There is nothing I can or would do about that. You have to accept it. This painting makes me think of skin-skin we call "white." If anything, I would double down on it. Because: fu.
This is not the greatest writing, is it? Too selfish. Too esoteric.
Let's think about the desert?
Am I not worthy of any thought? I am interested in what it is about me that brings us closer to God. I suppose a lot of that will lie beyond this white-skinned desert horizon of consciousness.
So I point.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
Click here for purchase enquiry
Wayne Vivier
Film Image #101
2025
*
30 May 2025
He is lying, my dear. Hee-ah! She strikes a blow with her blade. They are in their survival bunker, drinking their last cans of Coke, as the tsunami rushes in. Their eyes flash with last goodbyes.
The last time this happened, those who sacrificed themselves for the greater good came off second-best. So unless this is finally the Last Judgment, we will act selfishly.
I open my eyes so I can absorb the eleven million bits per second of information-for a bit. What is the narrative being woven here? What pervasive feeling is being created? Happy? Sad? Regret? Acceptance?
The white water rushes into this warm scene. I didn't think that hiding in the rocks would work. Who can hide from His judgment?
31 May 2025
Happy, sad, regret, acceptance. To just cease in an instant. To just burn up in a nuclear wave. All that, just... ending? It seems so counterintuitive.
Do we go on? Without our bodies? How, when we know nothing else? Our beings are so entwined with our bodies. How will we sustain ourselves without them? How will we remain sane? What will we do when we have nothing to move around in? And nothing to see? No bodies to absorb eleven million bits per second?
6 June 2025
This seems a very nondescript image. Why would anyone find it interesting? A nondescript image that resonates with our nondescript lives?
Does your life seem nondescript to you? Is it truly nondescript-or does your system of categories render it so? Would a shift in categories solve the problem?
Dave is blushing. He must be embarrassed about something. Is his aura of "handsome, interesting guy" holding up? His fake façade probably needs to be shattered before a more real image of him can be built.
The paint is applied relatively neatly and deliberately, except maybe for the white waterfall, which seems more chaotic. He is settled at the bottom of a U-shape-he takes the lowest position but is at the center, which creates a kind of tension.
Speaking of tension, where are the legs of the table on the right? It creates a sense of some impending spill. A fake system of valuation needs to be shattered before it can be rebuilt into something more real. This can only be done to the extent and ability of one's aesthetic.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
Click here for purchase enquiry
Wayne Vivier
Film Image #102
2025
*
7 June 2025
The colour on my computer screen and on my phone's screen renders mocha mousse differently. I used my phone with this one, and I see it's a bit darker. Categories shifting.
I had a strange vision: it looked as if things were shifting to the right in a staggered, glitchy way-so fast that I questioned whether the previous arrangement ever even existed. It's probably impossible to remember the images of reality I had before the one I have now. And everything I encounter now-or remember-will be different.
12 June 2024
You will not believe me if I tell you the great things I have done. How atomic your cow. In the darkness of unknowing, where I cannot see. Will you remember all the things I have told you? All that I have spoken?
You blew me a squirrel? What is that supposed to mean? What are you trying to say? Blow me a kiss? One moment bleeding into the next-enriching, or contaminating.
Why did you paint yourselves red? David's halo is glowing bright. It does not have to be said-just look, and maybe you will see. Just keep looking. No, I will not waste your time.
I am squirreling through the paint. I am a watcher.
M. Night Shyamalan's new movie Watchers has got something to it, I think. Anything could have happened in that period before the Flood. And the stories we've heard-unbelievable to our modern minds. We just don't see things like that anymore. Do we?
Anyway, I didn't come all this way to fool you. There is always a car parked there, blinking the sun into my eyes. So distracting. So annoying. A smoke in my nostrils.
Shall I go into the last ten minutes? Has anything been said? Have any Words been spoken? Has anything been Written?
Jinne! Now there are two cars parked there. Something wants to distract me. What are the alternatives? The altar, the other.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
Click here for purchase enquiry
Wayne Vivier
Film Image #103
2025
*
13 June 2025
History becomes legend, legend becomes myth. Much is lost, for there are none now from the past that live. Wicked little letters portrayed the white men as buffoons or religious draconian oppressors. The only males that came off well were the black guy and the Indian guy. Olivia Coleman cackled like a witch at the end. Why do the makers of this British movie hate Christian white men? Notwithstanding, I do still think it is a good movie. Linda seems mesmerized by a glowing orb in front of her. Dave seems very surprised by what Kate is saying. Kate is laying down some truths. Linda's frame of reality seems to be disintegrating, and this is affecting Dave somewhat. All three of them have this problem, but Linda is worst. But Linda does seem happiest. She has been befuddled by the glowing orb-the moon, maybe. The fridge and the Coke cans are poor in poetic content; they have a poverty of prophecy.
17 June 2025
Picking up a scroll lying on the railway tracks in the dungeons beneath Gringotts. Water washing away all enchantments and befuddlement. Seeing the truth and raising the alarm. It is not unclear-unclear (nuclear)-what needs to happen or what happens after that. Why does the fridge obtrude? Perhaps it's too young-too modern, too newly born compared to light, vegetation, or water. It lacks the weight of ancient things. Is it too young? Fire hose nozzles spraying foam above Kate. It seems less like water, more like foam in this one. Something fake and artificial about it-chemical compounds seeping into us. There is writing all over the wall. The foam does not reach the ancient drainage holes above Linda. The glowing orbs are swirling around on Linda's side.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
Click here for purchase enquiry
Wayne Vivier
Film Image #104
2025
*
18 June 2025
They will feel better in the hills. Let them die in the hills. Linda is looking sheepish. Kate and Dave have warpaint around their eyes. They look determined.
19 June 2025
There was a sand cloud hitting a dune going towards the shore. An amorphous mass, a cloud, dark, hitting a sunlit sand dune on the shore, with the clear blue sky behind. Immense moving amorphous mass, swirling, with a multitude of particles. It seemed to move slowly because of its immensity.
I partially obliterated the painting with a glaze of mocha mousse, and then with vertical pattern. And then started painting the image again as if from scratch. The result is something the same but more embodied in paint. Subtly the previous layer informs the latter.
The wall has developed a leathery texture. Like skin. I only got as far as putting the second red layer down. So I will wait and see what happens. The previous vertical pattern layer is now dancing with the second one. A palimpsest is being created. Linda's hair has joined the vertical pattern for a dance. Her hair hangs like dreadlocks now, with skulls and faces.
24 June 2025
Nod and smile and flourish your arm like an acrobat performing in a circus, like Pavarotti singing O Sole Mio.
Kate and Linda are the left and right brain hemispheres, respectively. Perhaps they are the West and East hemispheres of the globe too.
Dave is me? And Israel?
Trying to find the pattern-the narrative-that fits with this image. What is the story this painting is trying to tell? What emotion? What particular emotion?
How can I read the emotion? Where can I get the information-the eleven million bits per second of data? And how does my mind present it to my consciousness? And then how do I translate that into words and abstract ideas?
Do I just write furiously all the thoughts that come into my mind? Do I wait for my subconscious to process the data and present it to me in the form of an emotion? I suppose I could try both.
Why did I choose this challenging, nondescript image?
I conceptualise the three persons consciously, and the way they have been painted into existence-embodied in paint-subconsciously affects how I perceive them.
Nothing much seems to be happening here. No one is being murdered or raped. Nothing extreme or action-packed. No taboos or boundaries are being crossed.
The internal is trying to manifest externally.
How do I read what is going on inside them? All the effort that went into their mere existence. Trying to become more sensitive to the reality they exist in.
Why are they interacting with each other, these three individuals? Would they not be happier alone? Is all the shot worth the drop of joy?
What is all this white light, and why is it surrounding Dave? Is this just my ego trying to pump myself up? Or is this your anointing?
When I look at Dave surrounded by the white light, I feel a sense of wellbeing, joy, sublimity, beauty, warmth-womb-like comfort.
His facial expression, concerned, creates a tension with this. Bathed in light as he navigates his way through life.
*
Acrylic on board
30cm x 30cm
Unframed
R 990
Click here for purchase enquiry
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