TSZUJ
"What's your work about in one word?" i was asked "TSZUJ" said me "say three things about it"
Tszuj is the life force
Tszuj splatters time- breaks it apart
Tszuj is gay but if it wasn’t it would be anyway
Tszuj will never fail you - if yours scared start by ruining something then try to recover. If you're afraid of the page scribble on it, if you can’t get out of bed draw on it, if you're told its not yours write your name on it.
Tags are territorial tszuj.
Tszuj is the escape from monotony, one moment at a time.
A million different ways that are all tszuj - spillage, splat, spit
Tszuj is; the more professional acceptable name for jizz, the less pretentious name for eros, the less boring name for alive, the more nebulous name for a moment, the art speak name for wet an messy.
Being covered in paint after a long day at the studio is tszuj thats smug as a bukakke.
The bar can’t get any lower with tszuj (I mean its accessible not low brow but it could be that too)
Tszuj is available to all people anytime and meets everyone where they are at.
Tszuj can be a resistance to mediocracy if only by a millimetre.
Even the tiniest resistance or illumination is tszuj
Tszuj is the front line
Tszuj is crushed by those who have forgot they had it, or it hurts to remember they have lost it.
The ones who lost it say -keep moving, keep going, keep the machine working, don't look, don’t stop! You're not there yet, but they promise one day you will be. Don't make a moment. Those who make moments get bashed back down by ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
They can’t make a moment, because then they have to see how much pain they are in. And see how we got here. And what we lost.
SO SHUT UP AND FORGET ALL THIS SILLY TALK ABOUT TSZUJ
Tszuj is the cup that’s overfilling, that feels good to pour, and you cant stop and realise too late and spill it everywhere.
Tszuj is knowing your cup fills from higher planes and always will
Space becomes realised with tszuj
Everything that seems individual becomes one in tszuj - whether you like it or not, agree or disagree.
The boundaries between senses disappear with tszuj
Matter becomes cohesive
Colour becomes living
Says I EXIST even if you say I don’t
Says you exist even if you say you don’t
Says we have a choice and it doesn’t have to be this way
Throwing paint on a painting is ultimate tszuj for many reasons, and one is because it points to the fact that history or ‘past’ itself is a colonial project. And the neat line drawn between paint now, and paint off the past can be crossed and changed. And is alway changing. Paint on paint ! I only hope they dint put acrylic on oil. Thats not right… but it is still tszuj.*
Tszuj calls the past home to its true place of now.
Tszuj is tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (National Gallery, London 2022) or mash potatoes on Monet’s Les Meules (Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2022) or aerosol painted words 'KILL LIES ALL’ on Picasso’s Guernica (MoMA, New York 1974).
Tszuj can be paint (earth) but it can be anything that is not quite solid (water). Tszuj is between hot and cold, a balance between polarity. If it is solid it will break under tszuj.
Tszuj is a lover with an evil look in there eye spilling a pint in your lap
Or a friend chucking a drink in your face and shouting slag!
But even if it was an enemy it could still be tszuj
Tszuj is the ace of cups - overflowing with emotion, love, potential
Tuner went looking to capture tszuj and asked to be tired to the mast of a ship in a storm. He was ridiculed for the tszuj he captured. And he got pneumonia.
Chogyam painted tszuj in one stroke of black ink - a smear that he called wounded man or by the same tone man in love, exactly because of the grief around tszuj.
Tszuj is throwing paint on the cops, paint on paintings and that girl who threw a banana milkshake at Nigel Farrage outside The Moon and Starfish Wetherspoon in Essex. Even if it was just for the sake of her Only fans it was still tszuj.
They might call tszuj an attack on democracy, or attention seeking. And if that doesn’t work they might call it meaningless or irrelevant. ANY TACTIC TO STOP TSZUJ.
Tszuj doesn’t do what it thinks is supposed to
Tszuj knows what’s what
Tszuj points to the truth the punks knew (once)- that all that really matters is doing what you wanna do.
Tszuj seeks no parents, gods or bourgeoise daddy to win over, and no refuge, no assimilation, no ass to smooch. It don’t think about the future.
Bad tszuj or shadow tszuj is white wash; on a close down shop, or a political policy hiding the truth.
And this means well dignified tszuj is also truth.
Some tszuj is red paint on the side of a building complicit in genocide and hurts so much it makes you sick at the sight, but you glad its being seen.
Real blood spilled is the antithesis of tszuj.
Tszuj is that feeling in your gut that you are real and things matter
All eyes are on tszuj when its around
Tszuj is space becoming realised
Tszuj is the primordial force that all life springs from
Tszuj has intention - it wants to live just for the hell of it, and despite all the wounding it has well known.
____________________________________________
*they did in fact use water based paint on oil.
This is not the exact meaning of tszuj but its the closest word I found. I only learned to say so much about what it is because I couldn’t remember how to spell it and I was trying to find the word with chatGPT. I think this sums up what’s happened to me from years when unable spell something and I have to find other routes or words.
The actual meaning of TSZUJ also spelled ZHUSH is a small improvement, adjustment, or addition that completes the overall look, taste, etc. of something. OR make something more stylish, lively, or attractive.
Image credits
1. Victoria Thomas Bowen and her milkshake.
2. Picasso’s L’Hétaire after painted on by Marcel (no last name?) in Montreal June 2025
3. French police that i photographed from youtube cant remember what i was watching soz! Points to any of you riot lovers who can place it :) photo taken 17/09/2023 is the only clue i can give you.
4+5. Dharma art talk screen shot Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
6. Snow storm; Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth 1842 by J.M.W. Turner
7. shop front
8. The End 2024 - Plexiglass, acrylic paint, dice 28 x 19.5 x 5 cm by Myself and Jake Kent from ‘Demo version is way better’
Thanks to E-J Scott and Cardion Arts for the workshop where i made this !!!!
MORE THINGS LIKE THIS-
HYPO~OBJECTS - a short bit about mark making on things that aren’t yours and how its gendered.
BEYOND RATIONALISM BEYOND CAPITALISM - a very long bit about the moment, how i go about painting and living beyond things that make sense!!!!
You can support this blog by giving £8 a month but you really dont need too.










So: J.M.W. Turner's magisterial "Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth" is basically a work of unadulterated TSJUZ?
Fersure: yer good man there would be awfy chuffed to have scored this rare accolade!🙂