Great Art: William S. Burroughs’ Shotgun Paintings of 80’s

Great Art: William S. Burroughs’ Shotgun Paintings of 80’s

So Burroughs was really an author and writer but he did do some bloody great paintings with his shotgun, yeah a shotgun! After my art blog post the other day so just to prove art or that’s abstract art can do almost anything and nothing is too far, OK? All I can say is just please open your mind as the viewer of the paintings or artworks to what is possible in the creative process and off course, the final paintings hanging on the wall or I guess my exhibition on my blog post today!

I don’t know, if whoever you are reading this don’t knows even know who Burroughs is? You could just be say to yourself “who is this bloke? It’s just bits of woods with holes blow into them, that’s not art!” Well, I guess you could be right but your wrong and do feel a bit sorry for you, first you should just read some Burroughs and second it is great pure crazy artwork and is total genius paintings. WSB was an American born in 1914 and died in 1997, lived a lot of his life overseas in different places before returning home later in his life, his two notable novels were Naked Lunch (1959), Junkie (1953) and I could go on and on but will leave it at that.

These half a dozen of his shotgun paintings, a couple with Burroughs standing in front of them but all paintings below are on plywood, three have acrylic paint, photo-mechanical prints and Wood Spirits does have India ink pattern painted on the kind-of background too. These are just few and at one point or shows they were hung in a gallery so you could see both side but below is just the so-called fronts.

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Sore Shoulder, 1982
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Wood Spirits, 1987 
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Screaming Ghost, 1982
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Mink Mutiny, 1987
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Burroughs with two more paintings and his paint brush at a London exhibition then!

Today’s song continues the theme of William shooting things but this time he’s just shooting words in Ministry’s Just One Fix track/video of 1992 from the album entitled Psalm 69, do I need to say anymore?

Cheers 🙂

5 responses to “Great Art: William S. Burroughs’ Shotgun Paintings of 80’s”

  1. diannmeynor Avatar

    What an amazing artist! Thank You for sharing his inspiring works William.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. William Avatar

      No problem, anytime and glad you enjoy his artworks!
      Cheers Diann 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  2. thebiscuitfactoryonline Avatar

    It doesn’t surprise that Burroughs painted. I got into his prose via reading Henry Miller, who also painted, although not as well. Wood Spirits and Screaming Ghost are both liminal.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. William Avatar

      Oh yeah, i love Miller too which i named both him and Burroughs as fave authors with Kafka too in my all-time 50 books post late last year, you might wanna look at that post or not? i don’t know? if you wanna see, look, read here’s it: https://a1000mistakes.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/great-reading-top-50-books/
      I will have to check out your blog more too!
      Cheers again 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      1. thebiscuitfactoryonline Avatar

        I’ll check that out too. Thanks William
        Kev

        Liked by 1 person

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a1000mistakes

Well, I'm dyslexic so writing about something I love: Music, might help but it's most likely just full of mistakes. That title is also lyrics from The Drones song called I Don't Want To Change. Oh, my name is William and thanks for having a look.