Update on Digbeth Street Art: The Goat of Mendes Who Paints in His Own Blood.

A few days ago, I posted a blog post about some awesome street art I'd found in Digbeth.

Well, after having been bowled over by his work, and having spoken to him, and having had him pointing me at his Behance, I wanted to know if there was any more of his stuff around the web and around Brum. People who know me know that when I find something I like, knowing what I know is never enough, and so this is basically just a bit of a stream of stuff I found out about it and him since then.

A couple of days ago, I was contacted on Twitter by @djcolatron and he told me that the artist was something of a legend on the scene and known as the "Goat of Mendes". I guess that ties in with his "Sainte Caprinus" name on Behance . I'd been curious about that since he told me it. I knew that "Caprinus" is Latin for "goat", hence "Capricorn" and "capricious" - meaning goat-like variability, and it ties in with this Goat of Mendes name. 

The whole goat thing he's got going on with two different pseudonyms intrigued me because I really like goats!

That, combined with liking what I'd seen of his artwork so far piqued my curiosity. I wondered why this artist had named himself doubly after goats so I decided to find out a bit more about this Goat of Mendes.

The first thing I found was this Birmingham Mail article. It seems he's been around for a while.

A little more digging and I found that the Goat of Mendes was a name Eliphas Levi gave to an image he'd drawn in the 1850s of Baphomet - a deity the Knights Templar had been accused of worshipping.

A little more investigation tells me that Mendes was the ancient Greek name for the ancient Egyptian city of Djedet where a goat deity was worshipped.

I looked at a few sites about this, but this one seems to have a great mix of information, and creepiness. (There's something about an old Angelfire site, with red text on a black that just sends me straight back to being a teenager and sitting up later than I should have been looking at creepy stuff on the internet until I got a little too spooked and went to bed). 

So I'd found out a little about the man, and more than I was expecting about iconography and history. 

The Goat of Mendes

I shall leave you with something more definitive about the man himself then.
Here is The Goat of Mendes' Flickr page, with more of his artwork on it - less street art, and more canvas-type work.
That led me to his blog. It is very interesting. He seems to write very openly and very rawly. I will warn you, it goes to some pretty dark places including things such as self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and painting with blood, but I certainly found it very interesting finding out some of his processes, mental states, and particularly this post about how he got into and developed his street art.

I'm still actually no closer to knowing why he has doubly named himself for goats, but I have a new awe for him regardless.