Cover Art for Blood Mystic by George Gittoes. Courtesy of Pan Macmillan Australia.
Gittoes’ amazing life is breathlessly annotated for the first time. A controversial and outspoken artist – Gittoes has plotted with Julian Assange of Wikileaks; he has been blessed by Mother Theresa; he has dangerously dined with Fidel Castro, worked with Andy Warhol and Martin Sharp; been feted by Nelson Mandela and sneezed on by the Dalai Lama. Gittoes has also been jailed, drowned, tortured, shot, stabbed, survived bomb attacks and has been beaten up. He passionately wages war on war with painting, photography, circus, street theatre and film – he is equally artist and warrior.
Gittoes was born in 1949 in Rockdale in Sydney and had a rather rough childhood as the heir apparent to his gangster grandfather. He ends up in Kings Cross, risking beatings and after working with Andy Warhol in New York he founded the Yellow House in Sydney with Martin Sharp. He has won numerous awards for his paintings, twice being awarded the Blake Prize for religious art. His documentaries include Bullets of the Poets (1986) Soundtrack to War (2004) Rampage (2006) and Micreants of Taliwood (2007). He has campaigned for peace around the world: Nicaragua, Cambodia, Baghdad, America and Bosnia.
Gittoes lives in Sydney with his partner Hellen Rose and is the father of two children, Harley and Naomi. At the Jalalabad Yellow House, he and Hellen Rose, have organized to fund and train local men and women in art, music, film and performance which under the Taliban is controversial, dangerous and difficult.
Blood Mystic is medium sized but rather thick and heavy. In format it is like an artist’s diary or notebook including dream journals, letters, autobiography and field diaries. The many illustrations are bold and vivid. Gittoes charismatic personality breathlessly leaps off the page. There is a timeline at the front – with a forward by Philip Adams – and a handy proof-sheet like listing of illustrations at the back (but one thing missing I would have liked to see was an index).
We learn of many disturbing war stories in the world’s worst conflict zones and about the two Yellow Houses (first in Sydney and then Jalalabad) and the various schools and other charities he is involved in. Gittoes attended Kogarah High School, which he still visits to mentor students. He studied fine arts at the University of Sydney and helped establish the artist’s co-operative Yellow House, in Potts Point, from 1969 to 1972, with fellow artists Brett Whiteley and Martin Sharp.
We also learn of various films he is involved in creating but especially the Snow Monkey movie (which was recently rescreened on SBS). Gittoes deeply reflects on his extraordinary life – his rough childhood, his fleeing to New York and the Yellow House art revolutions in Sydney, his wild outback Australian adventures , life in dangerous ghetto America with the Black Panthers and the music world there, jungle Nicaragua, war-torn Cambodia, badlands Baghdad, hollow Bosnia… and elsewhere. We also meet strong women like Hellen and Neha.
Gittoes views his pursuit of war as an expression of his conviction about the value of art as a weapon for social change. In Blood Mystic Gittoes muses on the ways he uses film as a creative alternative way of bringing social opportunity and peace to Afghanistan. In Blood Mystic, Gittoes considers himself as a sort of artist-warrior in the conflict-torn nation, writing ‘Soldiers die for flags. There is nothing I believe in more than freedom of expression, than art.’ The book ends on a high note with his speech acceptance at the Sydney Peace Prize in 2015.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Title: Blood Mystic
Author: GITTOES GEORGE
Format: HARDCOVER
Publication date: 01/11/2016
Imprint: PAN MACMILLAN
Price: $39.99
Publishing status: Active
ISBN: 9781743534809
Released 25 October 2016
