On July 9, 2013 JavaArts will present an exhibition and the first public showing of the completed graphic novel “This Dog Barking – The Strange Story of UG Krishnamurti,” by Nicolas C. Grey and James Farley.

Exhibition details

This Dog Barking
Opening 6-9pm Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Reading and discussion 7pm Thursday, July 11, 2013

Showing July 9 – September 1, 2013
Java Café & Gallery (upstairs)
56 Sihanouk Blvd
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Open daily: 7am – 10pm
www.javaarts.org
www.javacafeandgallery.com

The date of the exhibition opening coincides with the 95th birthday of little known anti-guru and cult figure, UGK. Grey and Farley teamed up to create a book about him starting with small anecdotes, collected materials and a few drawings.  After ten years it turned into a masterpiece, more than a 150 pages long that weaves together the complicated lives UGK, his family, antagonists and followers through highly detailed drawings and storytelling.

The exhibition will feature a selection of framed original drawings by Grey, an installation of the entire publication, limited edition items, and a closet full of collected materials on UGK affectionately called the “UG-rama.” On the Thursday following the opening, Farley will read passages from the novel followed by a discussion with Grey moderated by curator-in-residence, Yean Reaksmey.

Excerpt from book synopsis:
“This Dog Barking – The Strange Story of UG Krishnaumrti chronicles the bizarre history of The Cosmic Naxalite; from his troubled childhood with the Theosophists and subsequent disillusion with many of the leading spiritual teachers of the twentieth century, to his catastrophic personal life and years of homelessness and destitution in London and Paris.

Nicolas C Grey’s haunting and beautifully detailed drawings capture both the personalities and atmosphere of UG’s life and times, and vividly bring to life his uncompromising, contrary and unbalancing conversational style.

Discomforting, irreverent, intimate and nihilistic, UG’s freewheeling and radical non-teaching undermines the very foundations of human thought, freeing the hearer from illusory goals and ‘the tyranny of knowledge, beauty, goodness, truth and God’.”

The publication of the graphic novel is due to be released in 2014 (date TBA).  Updates and details can be found at the website: http://thisdogbarking.com/

About the creators of This Dog barking

James Farley
James was born in the UK, studied English Literature at the University of Oxford and has been a children’s social worker for the past 22 years.

As an unsuccessful writer, his previous works include the never-performed stage adaptation of “The Radiance of the King” by Camara Laye, “Those Crazy Gurus” (unpublished) and “The Sand Pit”- a novel about a drug-smuggling air hostess in a Saudi Arabian prison (unfinished).

James began working on the text for “This Dog Barking” in 2004, and lives with his wife and son in Cambodia.

Nicolas C Grey
Nicolas was born in London, but grew up in Brighton on the south coast of England, and, having left both school and home at 16 is a self-taught artist.

Working under the name Dead Nic in the 1990s he was involved in the underground comix scene, producing, together with Benjamin Heath, the now legendary Watermelon comic. Nic also produced stand-alone pieces during this time which were shown in the UK with the Britart agency.

He works in a range of media, including collage, photography, comic art and mixed media wall sculpture. But, his signature style remains pen and ink drawings – the intricacy and psychedelic density of which never fail to fascinate audiences.

Nic lives and works in Cambodia and is represented by Dana Langlois of JavaArts Phnom Penh. He has been working full time on drawing “This Dog Barking” since 2009.