KINGDOM OF DUST
Footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage which we did not take (redacted)
down the passage which we did not take (redacted)
The token of the word unheard (redacted)
But reconciled among the stars
At the still point of the turning world (redacted)
At the still point of the turning world (redacted)
Observe disease in signatures (redacted)
Between being and UNbeing (redacted)
So I find words I never thought to speak (redacted)
She's talking to the fallen reeds (redacted)
TRIPTYCH (redacted)
“We are cluttered with images
and only abstract art
can bring us to the threshold
of the divine.”
Dominique de Menil
and only abstract art
can bring us to the threshold
of the divine.”
Dominique de Menil
KINGDOM OF DUST EXHIBITION
I enjoy the paradox that the transcendent is rooted in the earth-bound and the infinite: the word made flesh. These works are attempts to invoke a sense of something materialising, taking shape, or becoming visible. At the same time they are exploring the line between knowing and not knowing - and the idea of the ineffable.
They are intended as spaces of contemplation. My paintings follow a strict schema. They take their physical shape from Renaissance altar pieces. The tab at the top was traditionally reserved for annotation of biblical scenes, the shape is therefore driven by language and text.
My approach to the paint is borrowed from the painted-over graffti on city walls: blocks of colour that are close but not close enough. These new works appropriate that aesthetic of redaction and are made in the same way, with paint rollers and house paint. The rich, deep blue base is a nod to the colour that Renaissance painters reserved for the eternal. The lighter blue patches are the tell-tale residue of man-made attempts to discover the ‘true’ formula. The golden frame serves as a symbol of the divine boundary, the edge of the known universe, beyond which is not for our eyes. Outside this boundary and below the painting, in a metaphysical space, sits the redacted title on the gallery wall, a final and failed attempt to articulate certainty. My drawings are redacted text on an ambiguous miasmic background. It is representative of a pre-lingual internal space.
The redaction of the text questions the accuracy of languaging in any given moment, and how although we may choose a certain phrasing, it is limited in its ability to accurately capture our dialogue or intent.
Or not.
INFLUENCES
T.S. Eliot
Eliot was the first Modernist poet. My own ‘intolerable wrestle with words and their meanings’ lies behind the redacted titles of the paintings and drawings. I am drawn to the poetry of T.S. Eliot. I enjoy the accuracy of his language coupled with his vascillation between religious and existential themes. There is an absence of whimsy and emotion in his descriptions, and his inspection of his thirst for god. Eliot’s poetry is search for meaning and a rationale for life, his hope against hope to describe the ineffable, and to posit the transcendent.
The Rothko Chapel
Mark Rothko was an American Modernist Painter, an abstract expressionist, dealing primarily with colour and surface. His final works were a commission for what was to become The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. The Rothko Chapel houses fourteen large (roughly 3.5 metres by 3 metres) paintings in soft brown and purple, whose dark, nearly impenetrable surfaces represent hermeticism and contemplation. The black form paintings, consist of large, hard-edged black rectangles painted over muted, rust-red grounds, with a narrow border of red left showing. The effect is to surround the viewer with massive, imposing visions of darkness. Active spiritual or aesthetic inquiry may be elicited from the viewer, in the same way a religious icon with specific symbolism does. In this way, Rothko’s erasure of symbols both removes and creates barriers to the work.
I enjoy the paradox that the transcendent is rooted in the earth-bound and the infinite: the word made flesh. These works are attempts to invoke a sense of something materialising, taking shape, or becoming visible. At the same time they are exploring the line between knowing and not knowing - and the idea of the ineffable.
They are intended as spaces of contemplation. My paintings follow a strict schema. They take their physical shape from Renaissance altar pieces. The tab at the top was traditionally reserved for annotation of biblical scenes, the shape is therefore driven by language and text.
My approach to the paint is borrowed from the painted-over graffti on city walls: blocks of colour that are close but not close enough. These new works appropriate that aesthetic of redaction and are made in the same way, with paint rollers and house paint. The rich, deep blue base is a nod to the colour that Renaissance painters reserved for the eternal. The lighter blue patches are the tell-tale residue of man-made attempts to discover the ‘true’ formula. The golden frame serves as a symbol of the divine boundary, the edge of the known universe, beyond which is not for our eyes. Outside this boundary and below the painting, in a metaphysical space, sits the redacted title on the gallery wall, a final and failed attempt to articulate certainty. My drawings are redacted text on an ambiguous miasmic background. It is representative of a pre-lingual internal space.
The redaction of the text questions the accuracy of languaging in any given moment, and how although we may choose a certain phrasing, it is limited in its ability to accurately capture our dialogue or intent.
Or not.
INFLUENCES
T.S. Eliot
Eliot was the first Modernist poet. My own ‘intolerable wrestle with words and their meanings’ lies behind the redacted titles of the paintings and drawings. I am drawn to the poetry of T.S. Eliot. I enjoy the accuracy of his language coupled with his vascillation between religious and existential themes. There is an absence of whimsy and emotion in his descriptions, and his inspection of his thirst for god. Eliot’s poetry is search for meaning and a rationale for life, his hope against hope to describe the ineffable, and to posit the transcendent.
The Rothko Chapel
Mark Rothko was an American Modernist Painter, an abstract expressionist, dealing primarily with colour and surface. His final works were a commission for what was to become The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. The Rothko Chapel houses fourteen large (roughly 3.5 metres by 3 metres) paintings in soft brown and purple, whose dark, nearly impenetrable surfaces represent hermeticism and contemplation. The black form paintings, consist of large, hard-edged black rectangles painted over muted, rust-red grounds, with a narrow border of red left showing. The effect is to surround the viewer with massive, imposing visions of darkness. Active spiritual or aesthetic inquiry may be elicited from the viewer, in the same way a religious icon with specific symbolism does. In this way, Rothko’s erasure of symbols both removes and creates barriers to the work.
