SEX PAINTING: masturbating girl with steel dildo

Masturbating Girl 9w*** 30 x 22 inches acrylic and charcoal on rives bfk
PLEASE NOTE: this is a preliminary IPHONE photo, filtered and sharpened and whatnot in photoshop, but STILL, ya know ! I will repost this after it is shot with the great lens and camera body. It will look better then.

Now this painting was a lighthearted undertaking. I mean I can only immerse my heart and soul in re-experiencing the death of Suzanne from that grinding, pernicious cancer for just so long before turning my heart and soul to the erotic and delicious vision of a beautiful girl masturbating with the justly famous nJoy Eleven (a steel dildo that is a thing of sculptural beauty in itself)!

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dying 9wxx1 30 x 22 inches acrylic and charcoal on rives bfk

PLEASE NOTE: this is a preliminary IPHONE photo, filtered and sharpened and whatnot in photoshop, but STILL, ya know ! I will repost this after it is shot with the great lens and camera body. It will look better then.

The reference for this painting is also from December 20th, 2009, eleven days before Suzanne's death from metastatic hemangiopericytoma. I have come to call them death paintings, but I often think of them as KADDISH which is the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

For one thing I know: that nine-year journey from the diagnosis of the first brain tumor to her final surrender was a holy path I was blessed to be allowed to share, and at the moment of death God shook the universe and I howled.

DEATH PAINTING: my wife died a year ago today

Suzanne Dying 9w074 conté and acrylic on rag paper 19 1/2 x 18 inches

A year ago this morning my wife, Suzanne Mauer, died after a nine-year battle with metastatic hemangiopericytoma. Her doctors, Ronald Blum at Beth Israel and Robert Maki at Sloan Kettering, were wonderful doctors and loving men. Suzanne's death was long, lingering, agonizing, and included a vicious and very expensive legal battle to get treatment approved by her insurance carrier. She went, in a wheelchair, to Albany to talk to the lawmakers in the Capitol and, based on that trip and the incredible help of Mark Scherzer, there is now a New York State law that says that a person with a rare disease cannot be denied coverage based on a lack of "clinical studies".

She was tough, loving and complicated. Her computer screen saver said "LOVE RULES." These paintings are love letters. And I will continue making them until they stop demanding to be made. The hell with decorative painting.

PAINTING. Dying of Cancer

Suzanne PostOp 4w014 gouache and conté on paper 24 x 18 inches

It is a dark time for me now. I feel a great deal of grief. A year ago exactly, my late wife Suzanne decided to stop her battle against cancer. Hemangiopericytoma. Nine years. She didn't go to treatment that day, or ever again. I know I have posted the DEATH PAINTINGS before, perhaps all of them. I don't know if I posted this gouache I painted just after her vertebrectomy in 2004.

Today was the Winter Solstice. Mehr Licht.

SEX AND SURRENDER at ARTEROTICA 6

SURRENDER 8w444 30 x 22 inches (detail) copyright 2008 Jonathan Herbert

sybarite productions proudly presents

JONATHAN HERBERT

four limited edition prints from

SEX AND SURRENDER

at ArteRoTica 6

an exhibition and performance of the erotic

THURSDAY

10 DECEMBER 2009

7PM TO MIDNIGHT

Madame X

94 West Houston Street, Greenwich Village

(all guests of Jonathan Herbert admitted free to nightclub)

You can click to be whisked to my newly updated website: biographical information and a number of recent bodies of work are on display, including images of my NAKED GIRL series and from my latest work SEX AND DEATH, inspired by my wife's nine-year battle with cancer and her death on New Year's Eve 2008, and by our innate erotic response to the harsh fact of our mortality.

Four limited edition prints from the larger series SEX AND SURRENDER, by JONATHAN HERBERT, will open at Madame X, 94 West Houston Street, on December 10th, from 7pm to midnight. The work is being mounted at the December ArteRoTica, a monthly event created and produced by Sybarite Productions, Inc., and partners.

SEX AND SURRENDER focuses on the erotic nature of power exchange. On view are limited edition prints of paintings of women who are sexually aroused by being tied up. Says Herbert, "The trinity of sex, death and redemption are the themes I explore in my art.”

Jonathan Herbert grew up in a house in which the walls were covered with paintings, drawings, and Japanese prints. He was a Museum of Modern Art regular from infancy, and has been an artist for forty years.

Since 2003 he has worked in a studio in the Fulton Ferry area of Brooklyn. It is obvious to even the casual viewer that Herbert has an abiding love affair with paint, the substance; like the alchemists, he works in a pre-scientific, pre-technological, approximate and mysterious world. Herbert graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

His website is www.jonathanherbert.com; recently he has begun to write about his artistic process his on this blog, as well as posting new work as it is shot.

WHAT IS WORK FOR AN ARTIST?

When I was a young art student at the Museum School in the 70's, I was moping down the hall one day, depression blaring from my every cell. I admit it was because I could not get my latest obsession du jour to do the horizontal mambo with me, but my mentor and friend John Thompson, Dean of Students, was unaware of that.

Dean Thompson assumed rather that I was troubled by a dip in my creative output. He took me into his office and said, "Jonathan, when others are lying in the park watching the clouds go by, they are goofing off. When you do it, you are working! Remember that every artist needs fanny time as much as hand time." Those words, exactly.

In this dark December, the first after the death of my wife, I look at my studio, devoid of new work for a month or so, and remember John Thompson's words. I know I am still in process on both the DEAD SUZANNE and the new MASTURBATION paintings. I'll post some sketches I've just completed when I shoot them.

SEX AND SURRENDER an art exhibit

Sybarite Productions, Colors Consulting Group & Trace Magazine present
Jonathan Herbert
Sex and Surrender
The featured exhibit at ArteRoTica
Madame X, 94 West Houston Street on Thursday October 15th 7 p.m.

SEX AND SURRENDER, a solo exhibit of limited edition prints by JONATHAN HERBERT will open at Madame X, 94 West Houston Street, on October 15th, from 7pm to midnight.

SEX AND SURRENDER focuses on the erotic nature of power exchange. On view are limited edition prints of paintings of women who are sexually aroused by being tied up.

Says Herbert, “Painting I believe, is prayer; thus my work is the direct, 21st century descendant of the medieval monk’s devotional vocation. Further, my approach to art is based on the understanding that the role of the artist is similar to that of the shaman in primitive societies. It is our calling to go where the rest of the tribe cannot, bring back the experience of those difficult spiritual realms and translate it for general consumption. For example I, a member of a necrophobic society, immerse myself in my wife’s journey into death; the paintings that result are gut-wrenchingly powerful and deep, but ever so more gentle than “that good night” which claimed her. Alternatively, in a society conflicted about sexuality, I fan the flames of my libido and pour that energy and experience onto canvas and paper. I see beauty in desolate city streets and agony in a rose opening under a twilit sky.

The trinity of sex, death and redemption are the themes I explore in my art.”

Jonathan Herbert grew up in a house in which the walls were covered with paintings, drawings, and Japanese prints. He was a Museum of Modern Art regular from infancy, and has been an artist for forty years. Since 2003 he has worked in a studio in the Fulton Ferry area of Brooklyn. It is obvious to even the casual viewer that Herbert has an abiding love affair with paint, the substance; like the alchemists, he works in a pre-scientific, pre-technological, approximate and mysterious world. Herbert graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His website is http://www.jonathanherbert.com/.

Curated by Alaric Campbell, ArteRoTica exhibits monthly the works of carefully chosen, New York artists whose work explores erotic themes. Taking place at Madame X, at 94 West Houston Street, in the heart of New York’s West Village, the event features displays of erotic art – fine art, photography, and performance art.

Email Jonathan Herbert for further information.

SEX PAINTING

Submission 8w271 30" x 22" gouache and conté on paper

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

SEX PAINTING

Submission 8w484 30" x 22" acrylic and charcoal on paper

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dead 9o007 35" x 27" oil on linen

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dying (9w074) 18" x 18" conté and acrylic on paper

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dead 9d106 9" x 6" charcoal on paper

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

SEX AND DEATH PAINTINGS: Open Studio

Suzanne post Vertebrectomy (4d18) 24" x 18"conte and charcoal on paper

OPEN STUDIO
as part of the
DUMBO UNDER THE BRIDGE ART FESTIVAL



68 Jay Street No. 803, Brooklyn, NY 11201



Saturday 9/26 and Sunday 9/27 from 1 pm to 5 pm

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dying (9w048) 30" x 22" acrylic on paper

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dying (9w047) 30" x 22" acrylic on paper

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

DEATH PAINTING

Dead Suzanne (9w073) acrylic and charcoal on paper 72" x 52"

This painting and other related SEX AND DEATH artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

Naked Girl

SSS 9d92 24" x 18" charcoal on paper

Related NAKED GIRLS artworks can be viewed on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

Naked Girl

SSS 9w15 24" x 18" brush and ink on paper

Other related NAKED GIRLS artworks can be viewed in that gallery on my website.

JONATHAN HERBERT

Naked Girl

SSS 9w11 24" x 18" acrylic and charcoal on paper

Naked Girl

SSS 9d25 30" x 22" acrylic and charcoal on paper