to describe don van vliet as a rock star would be a gross simplification of a highly complex creative mind, and it's a label that van vliet - better known as captain beefheart - would surely object to. an astonishingly inventive composer whose musical innovations are touted by everyone from ed ruscha and woody allen to laurie anderson and johnny rotten, beefheart has spent the past twenty years flinging a wrench into the star-maker machine and he's still got a surprise or two up his sleeve. who'd have guessed, for instance, that the captain would succeed in infiltrating one of the art world's holiest inner chambers, the mary boone gallery?

it didn't surprise van vliet, who has been painting since he was a small child. nor did it surprise his pal julian schnabel, who's had a considerable hand in helping launch van vliet's second career, which got off to an auspicious start last year with a solo exhibition at the michael werner gallery in germany. it makes sense that the germans, drunk on the 'sturm und drang' of neo-expressionism, would be the first to accord van vliet's turbulent paintings the attention they merit. a.r. penck, a leader of the german neo-ex movement, wrote a laudatory catalogue essay for van vliet's show, which sold well and led to a december exhibition at mary boone gallery in new york.

needless to say, van vliet encountered some resentment on the highly competitive streets of manhattan, where snotty reviewers tended to dismiss him as dabbling rock star. none the less, this show also sold well and luminaries from stage and screen turned out to pay their respects. 'i wasn't surprised to see people like diane keaton and richard gere at my show because they're pretty smart so they're probably as bored as i am', he observed.

[not in 'l.a. weekly':] 'richard gere came up and quoted some lyrics from an album i did many years ago, so i guess he's been following my music for a while.' and last month van vliet travelled to london to install an exhibition of new work at the leslie waddington gallery, then went on to cologne to prepare for a second show early next year.

[only in 'l.a. weekly':] van vliet paints a world where man is an animal among animals; the texture is that of flesh and fur, and the taste is salty. all manner of life prances and preens in this blooming place where the violet air is perfumed with the scent of damp earth, and man, eager for war, is the scariest monster of all.

as in his music, van vliet achieves a sort of orchestrated cacophony in his paintings. flying into a realm where primitive forms collide in the ether, these free-wheeling pictures hum with the sound of buzzing insects and rustling foliage. a red gibbon ape darts by a stone-faced trio of easter islanders in ‘red cloud monkey’; in ‘copper diver’, a human figure strokes a massive sea beast with the solemn tenderness one might bring to a first kiss.

the peculiar human compulsion to wreak havoc on nature is a central concern for van vliet, and his explosive abstractions often deal with man's clumsy attempts to impose himself on the universe. in van vliet's telling of the tale, gravity tugs relentlessly at any lofty pretentious man might effect, and nature remains poised to take him down a peg.

born on 15 january 1941 in glendale, california, van vliet knew from the time he was a wee toddler that he was blessed with a vivid imagination and an uncommonly strong sense of himself.

i had my parents trained from the time i was a baby. i used to tell them they were my gas station. i remember one time i branded my mother. she used to wear those mule type shoes... you know, she'd clip-clop across the room. one time - i was about three - i put a piece of toast under the rug. she shuffled into it, went flying and landed on the heater. it branded her with an 'h' that's never gone away....

van vliet has an inexhaustible supply of anecdotes like this and is a very funny man. the most extraordinary thing about van vliet, however, is the fact that he moves through the world in a naked way, free of the screening / editing equipment the rest of us use to buffer ourselves from life.

when van vliet sits in a room he notices - and is often overwhelmed by - everything in the physical environment that surrounds him. sounds, smells, objects - he takes them all in so completely that his circuits frequently overload.

now look here!, he's apt to enthuse, let's stop for just a minute and really look at this moth! i mean, look at this moth!!

yes, it's a jam-packed world that don van vliet lives in. herewith, a few of the things he has noticed in it lately:

harvard is a hell of a college. i enjoy their reports. they turn some real jerks out of that school. it's pretty obvious to me that man is basically evil and things really get scary when man 'gets it together'. efficient jerks are the worst.

you know, i really did not go to school, ever. i educated myself by osmosis and by knowing that you can't defy gravity. and also by remembering that the thing that makes a person wise is to have an open mind and stay aware of the fact that it's impossible to shut it.

i knew when i was two years old that there's no stability. it's always been one earthquake after another. one time elsa lancaster was on johnny carson's tv show and he said to her: 'what about that big earthquake the other day?' she replied: 'yeah, i felt like a button in a shoebox'. what a great comment!

[only in 'l.a. weekly':] she was the ‘bride of frankenstein’ [movie character – t.t.] and was also married to charles laughton, who was an incredible actor. but what about playing with little boys the way he did? the little behinds? face-down little nude boys? and elsa at home kind of avoiding the fact. she told him: ‘it's all right, charles, just don't bring them in the house’.

there aren't too many men in this world. too many of them believe in that greek stuff, that adonis crap. a nude man is not very interesting - believe me, i'm a man and i've been nude and seen what i look like, and it doesn't look anything like a dolphin, which is a beautiful thing.

women spend most of their lives babysitting little boys - i'm a man so i know this is true. woman is the superior sex, indubitably. what makes them superior is the fact that they have to have a man. i have enough woman in me to know these things, and yet i'm not gay. i don't dig rockets that are made of flesh.

amyl nitrate ['poppers'] is what killed the great bass clarinetist eric dolphy, and boris karloff [film actor, best known as 'the monster of frankenstein'] was on blue morphine all along. he had a lot of money and so does ray charles [famous crossover musician]. who the hell would not be a heroin addict once they got on it? you can't quit that stuff. can you stop being on the rockpile? can you defy gravity? i can't. yet i have to eat, drink, think and sleep, and i'm a slave.