Asher Mains Art

This is my latest piece. It is 30″ x 40″ oil on canvas. I used my stencil technique but I reversed the process so the darkest layer is on bottom. I have been having some difficulty posting it to wordpress so you can view the new piece at this link. Enjoy!

View Post

Peachy Ebook

Did you know that you can get my “Everything is Peachy in Babylon” catalog as an ebook?

View Post

shared via WordPress.com

“Everything is Peachy in Babylon”

Asher Mains

Gallery of Caribbean Art

The concept for “Everything is Peachy in Babylon” is an anti-ad campaign sarcastically pointing at the promises and illusions of the American dream and the glorification of imperial systems. Growing up in the Caribbean and later pursuing university education in the States, I realized that the empty promises that fuel American ideals still draw people from abroad to pursue their own illusions. While much of the “first world” is in disrepair and socially inept, it is still promoted as the destination for promising West Indians and others to become all that they can be. This exhibit encourages viewers to inspire themselves with the invisible wings necessary to overcome the destructive systems that Babylon promotes as prosperity.

An underlying theme in much of the work represented in this exhibit is the concept of fractals. Fractals are a mathematical theory that is used as a way of describing shapes found in nature. Mountains, waves, and trees are all natural expressions of fractals. My approach to fractals is a social one. The concept is that behaviour repeats itself (in iterations) in a self similar way, indefinitely. Further, the fractal patterns inspires itself and dictates what future patterns will look like, similar to two mirrors facing each other, a phenomenon known as recursion. In a sense of time, the way you use your time in a day is an approximate representation of the way you use your time all year. The market scene is not only represented by shapes that are fractal in nature but the context of the piece is a social fractal. The entire scene is a market scene, a center for food production and distribution. Within the scene there are smaller iterations of the greater; someone cooking a pot, someone eating food. On the smallest and most intimate level, a mother is feeding her child, creating feedback that paints the entire scene once again in an intimate personal manner representative of the reality of a marketplace.  

Babylon is the Rastafarian term for oppressive systems many times referring to the “first world”. 

Yout’ man,
Come out the hot sun,
Enjoy some air condition,
Yuh skin don’t need de attention,
Everything is peachy in Babylon.
Babylon is the place of dreams,
Conceive, believe, and see de sales team,
Come get your loan interest free
Payback is easy with plastic money.

In Babylon you can take what you want
An’ if you can’t find what you want
You can make what you want.
In Babylon, you don’t must have employment
The government is invested in your enjoyment.
You need security?
You secure with me.
Babylon has artillery.
Babylon have massive guns and bombs,
Nobody could take what is Babylon’s.

Babylon’s walls are tall and go on and on
Everything is peachy in Babylon
The roads in Babylon are paved with gold
Or so I’m told
And your goal
Should be to see them before you’re old.

 And don’t listen to Peachy B

Little girl telling you to be free,
That things aren’t all what they seem
And all you need are wings
What you going to do? Strap them on?
Everything is peachy in Babylon.

Don’t listen to Peachy B,
You’ll never want to leave
When you see
All that Babylon can be.

Repeat after me,

Everything is Peachy

Everything is Peachy

Everything is Peachy in Babylon