In Memoriam: Jennifer Miro of The Nun’s (1957-2011) dies a few months ago. So grateful for her modelling the figure in my painting. Such a good hearted soul
What is this thing called Love? Acrylic, screenprint on canvas. Jennifer Miro featured as Fucundity, 2011 by Carl Gopalkrishnan
In the last 2 days I was told of the death of Jennifer Anderson (Miro) of The Nuns, from cancer at the end of December 2011 at the age of 54. I was so devastated, as with great gusto and positivity she threw herself into the idea of being a character in one of my paintings. She was generous, and collaborated with What is this thing called Love?. She never told me about the cancer. A private person who supported other artists. It's very sad.
Jennifer enjoyed my art when we connected online and I thought, I need her spirit in my paintings as she has so many interesting things to say. She was fun, and generously shared intimate and creative images from her personal collection for the canvas, and we planned to meet up the following year in NY. That won't happen.
I hope in this painting her humour and unconventional approach to life comes across. But I am sad that at the end, we won't have that coffee over the painting and probably won't detour to the US next year. It’s too sad. When you're not often understood, when your work is just too different to the mainstream, talking to someone like Jennifer really helped. I think she really got that about my art and responded. So I miss that understanding. She was a very kind person and such fun.
A lot of people still think of Debbie Harry has her understudy, as there is a lot of documentation of her style that pre-dates Blondie. Check out Punk '77: An Inside Look at the San Francisco Rock N' Roll Scene, (1977) by photographer James Starke. It was a style that a lot of people imitated even as far away as Australia, and their influence remained with garage bands for years after this period gave way to New Wave.
Miro remains a figure of creativity, a spirit that defied conventional ideas of love and delivered unusual renditions of original songs that live outside time, and so the painting What is this thing called Love? asks - perhaps we need to remember the qualities that make people special, rather than just mass-create them? A beautiful lady and a great talent. But she didn't repeat the illusions. She painted the truth in darker tones for, perhaps a smaller audience, but nonetheless, it reached out to me growing up (and still does) and many others. Nothing mass-produced about Jennifer. So many people who grew up with early punk music love this about her.
Unlike a lot of the generation that did what labels told them, she kept a very original and independent creative musical path. Her later fetish expressions always had humour, and nothing about her was what you would expect. Something to aim for, as a person and as an artist.
Thank you Jennifer. I hope you love these paintings wherever you are, and that you are surrounded by goodness - or at least good stockbrokers. C
