By Doug Rickard
There is a place of inner dreams… a love thirst of viscious longing that can inhabit the body, fill the mind and suck one inward with the relentless force of black hole gravity. The pull is ferocious as the fantasies grow. And isolation from society becomes a force as one seperates from “the normal” with rolling stone momentum. You’re here, they’re over there… you and your self – they and “the rest”. Your deepening slide, the accelerating fall inward becomes your exile… an exile by yourself, within the self… to the self. The vivid dreams become all consuming… the chains latch shut while your thirst grows – shaped as self imposed walls. A maze of self-built brick chambers, a mental cage of unadulterated urge.
Desire, hidden beauty, secrets and open space exist but you’re all alone… the space is only the internal. Your falling-inward thoughts become your god. As your isolation grows stronger, the deafening loneliness claws at your back, scratching away the smiles of “the others” until you can see only your raw self, your open wounds and your vicious scars… your desires, your dreams, your urges. What remains of “what once was” has been remade into something else… your shape-shifting memories grow stronger while your present fades into your past, your psyche is heavy and growing further into your new form. What began of “you” is now something different. You follow your self but you shouldn’t, or should you? You trust yourself but it lies, you know that it does. Who do you trust… your self or the others? Is the voice in your self the deceiver or is it your salvation… is it your “truth”?
The desires and the isolation continue to expand inward, and the thoughts grow into your diamond encrusted roar as the elaborate dreams pound within your chest, pressing you back further into your mind, into the chasm that inhabits your beautiful-bottle-blonde head.
You, your self and your space… together, a couple, in your place. You and your complex maze in your empty alter of isolation. You build out your beauty shapes, your inner dreams mix into your urges and your walls keep you cozy. Your memories-your desires, your beauty-your ugly… they become your crown, they become your story and they are your shrine. They are your kingdom of ruby and stone. Your thoughts as your slaves, your slaves as your thoughts – your kingdom of loneliness is now the universe of your reign. You are in here, they are out there… you are not them, they are not you. Stay in your kingdom and worship or stay in your shell and rot? Rot in your beauty and let it snuff you out or thrive in your fantasy and devour everything in its path. Sit in your trap and live in your shimmering, glorious, skin and your white walled lipstick empty space.
Victor Cobo’s kingdom is vast, yet contained by heavy walls… walls of the psyche, walls of the drive, walls of the urge, the fantasies, the need for love, the isolation that consumes the self. It is a photographic carnival-hall of mirrors-tale of horror and beauty. Hidden yet grand, demanding yet delicate… relentless and vast. Secrets and whispers, fur and glass… an individual exiled in the land of desire for love, by the river of longing for touch. The alienation that forces the hidden creation… the compulsion and secrets that consume the shadows and the sun.
Soak up the shimmer, drink in the scent, feel the skin… stop in your tracks and let the sweat roll down your trembling backs.
Around the WEB: Victor Cobo
* Victor Cobo site
* Burn Magazine
* 1000 Words Magazine
ASX CHANNEL: Victor Cobo
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(© Victor Cobo, 2004. All rights reserved. All images © copyright the photographer and/or publisher)