Self Portraits As Other People, ep 2:

Trius — Escape From Ikem

Art by Trius

Listen to the podcast here

In this diffi-cultish episode we navigate the orchard of twisted beauty in which a shade-grown tree named Trius grew up, contorting his way into the light to produce the strange fruit we call art. Trius is a painter who was born into the infamous Moonie cult, and who has spent a great deal of his life trying to rid himself from the stains left by their indoctrinated worldview. We explore how the traumatic distortions of this origin story continue to play out in his psyche, and the role that art plays in the reclamation of freedom and mind. Also, he recently escaped from a Czech hospital that may or may not have been run by the mafia.

For more of Trius’ creation please visit www.triusart.blogspot.com

“Church Indoctrinated” by Trius

Shownotes:

One of Trius’ more recent self-portraits

Trius at an Art Exhibit in San Francisco ca. 2011

“Doctrine” by Trius

What does not kill us makes us stranger. This was an odd moment in 2011 that I cannot really explain, but still felt was important to include, maybe because… Dark Elf energy, “playing in pain”?

• Prelude/preview: Art as Strange Fruit, Shade-grown in an Orchard of Twisted Beauty
• Introduction (includes a William Buroughs impression: “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.”)

MoonieDays

• “it’s all Greek to me” (Turkish invasion & squatter’s rights)
• email from Benjamin Dickinson IV
• The Moonies (SNL sketch by Andy Kaufman)
• Rev. Sun Myung Moon aka “ketchup”
• The Quakers
• “all I got was this lousy T-shirt”
• getting stung by bees daily: the formative years
• Honey-moonies in Moscow: an arranged marriage (age 20) — (aspirations for carpentry apprenticeship)
• psychological pressure — flight/flee
• Cultish tactic: Big Brother tattle-tale, feedback loop/echo chamber, “internal shepherding”
• Whenever he gets close to “brothers”/”sisters” he gets separated/shipped around/controlled
• Church activities: wake early, bow to mr. and mrs. Moon — “the True Parents”.
• Family, inc.
• Early artistic aspirations: 1000 page book of explosions and drawings of demons
• Demon possession accusations: Welcome to the beautiful Chung Pyung Resort, N-Korea
• Workshops at Chung Pyung: relaxing countryside turned “outskirt hellish zone”, barricaded barbed wires leading 1 mile, to the exit. Trapped.
• Get your “evil spirits” out so you can go to heaven. Clapping/chanting sessions turn into violent backslapping.
• Death Metal Hare Krishna
• 4 types of sin: original, hereditary, collective, individual

• NDE: potentially drugged food, weakness, hallucinations, boa constrictor
• Dae Mo Nim, soldier of Moon. Practiced 10.000 bows to receive leadership position
• Trius as Blessed Child (2nd generation, born into Moonies) full of demons
• FILM reference: Swimming to Cambodia — spirit operation
• 2 hrs of full-force throat-slapping
• Belief as O.S., conditioning reality
• PTSD post Moon: 1st attempt to leave at 19 after visit to “East garden”.
• How this influenced Trius’ art
• art as “ghost-busting”

Art by Trius

Art by Trius

Czech Story

• A new beginning: on the train
• Aneurysm
• MRI scans
• Ablation by laser
• Poisoned by kitchen staff? (ambulance waiting)
• Ikem resembled Chung Pyung — dormitory style, blocked off from the outside.
• Poked by doctors, tackled by nurses and scolded for soiling himself; his notes copied by “brothers” who give him wine.
• Demands to see the head surgeons, and to be able to leave, uses their fear tactics against them.

Trius in his studio in San Francisco, ca 2010

• Meets the chief of board of directors — mob personality
• Medicine Mafia racket? Held for ransom?
• Berlin: the drugs are more powerful when you’re off them!
• “the godfather of Prague”
• escape from Ikem, sans shoes & coat, past goats, through creek, scans passport, notifies authorities.
• FILM: Tarkofski’s Stalker
• Checked in to a ward in Berlin

One of Trius’ Self Portraits from some years back

Trius’ portrait of me ca. 2011. In the post I proposed to write his auto-biography in exchange of this self-portrait he had done of me. In a sense this episode is me coming through on that promise.

Trius ALWAYS draws me as a stark Russian Philosopher type

See? ALWAYS as a Russian philosopher type. Ok, maybe here I look more like a Rasputin type, but still….

• Chung Pyung and Ikem revisited (talk #2)

Trius having a Col. Kurtz/Heart of Darkness moment

• Perspectives on controlling forces
• Arranged/deranged marriage

Art by Trius

• do you prefer to be beaten by 1) a woman 2) a man 3) an elephant 4) an aarvark’s proboscis?
• Chung Pyung revisited
• Strychnine in my bibimbap
• family as cult — cult care through the generations
• “the clear light of guidance within you ix reframed through a kaleidoscope of trauma, distortion, and derangement.”
• Art as strange fruit, shade-grown in orchards of twisted beauty
• Sophia in suicide ward
• Karmic “lunar” cycle of abuse — resolution

Art by Trius

• Non-Moonie mommy begets Milena
• Perfecting the work
• The human need to quantifying the process when faced with an unknown
• Polo Cabrera
• Do it for the Love

And finally, for redemption sake, here’s the iconic photo series I did of Trius’ and his youngest daughter Milena, in 2010:

“Nostalgia”

“Smoke Rock”

“Trius Sucking a Splinter From Milena’s Palm”

“Fenced”

“Black Sheep”