:: 2022 :: 450cm x 30cm in five 90cm x 30cm panels :: Acrylics, Inks and Markers on Canvas ::
Some years ago, I was invited by artist and curator Iain Whittaker to exhibit some artworks in a group show in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. The show was originally scheduled to be held in 2020 or 2021, but it was delayed until late 2022 by the global coronavirus pandemic. The years 2020-22 have elicited some great changes in me, and I decided to take the opportunity of this delay to create something completely new, and hopefully somewhat spectacular. ‘Are We Orbiting…?’ is the result.
Originally conceived as a kind of re-make of my 2019-20 longform drawing ‘Chaos Within The Heart Of The Sun Of The Sun Because I Love The Brother Of The Moon’, it quickly diverted into a work of memory, of celebrations of past lives and identities, and of mourning that those past selves have now indeed ‘passed’.
This dense multi-panel artwork has many layers of meaning for me, but principally the autobiographical, the archetypal and the cathartic. It is associated with a 2021 poem entitled ‘Feelspace’, which was another major inspiration for the artwork, and the text of which is enfolded throughout the imagery, but it is also driven by a 2021 musical piece ‘Are We Orbiting Simulated Lives?’ which helped me rapidly animate and understand the meaning and future pathway of this complex artwork when I was compositionally stuck in the early stages of its creation.
This music can be heard as the soundtrack for the first film above, and comes from my 2021 album, also called ‘Feelspace’, while the full text of the poem can be read at the base of this page.
You can download and listen to the music from these two films for free at my Bandcamp page.
I have also produced two films as part of this artwork: these can be seen above or on my YouTube channel. The first scans left to right across the frieze and steadily reveals the text of the poem in a blurry and slightly dreamy way. The second film explores a different journey through the imagery, and narrates how a sense of alienation and isolation from the world has been rising in me in recent years, how that sense has driven some wild changes in me, and how this relates to the cathartic ethos behind this artwork.
Are We Orbiting...? in my studio, July 2022
Scroll down for further images and details of this dense, multi-layered, multi-panel artwork.
As I say in the second film, I could launch into a long excursion about each image in this frieze, and how the iconography relates to my changing lives over the years, but I prefer to let the audience experience it all in their own ways. My website is a treasure trove of artwork for those curious explorers who want to delve deeper into my world, and no doubt one can find previous artworks which resonate strongly with a lot of the imagery here.
This artwork may well represent the first in a ‘farewell’ series of works, as at the time of writing I am unsure if I will continue to be an artist in the mid-to-long-term future. I am open to quitting, and exploring music and poetry more deeply, but I am also open to continuing as an artist in a quieter manner. I don’t yet know, but I’m excited to see.
:: Feelspace (2021) ::
i’m not afraid close my eyes but slow, slow… and soft, soft… and feel, feel… glitch night to day strange to sit whistling for cityscapes, already gone and for me so easily it slips away |
ghost sorrows but keenly something from such sadness there must come beauty it speaks from far deep and then for me i’m still not afraid but i can be lost waiting in vain |
this unknown is this who i’ll embrace but am i just orbiting or am I (w)ringing of everything, can i rise up, to let it all pass by…? i close my eyes for the silence… |
:: 'Are We Orbiting...?' - The Five Panels ::
:: 'Are We Orbiting...?' - Detail Images ::
