I am putting these works in the Millennium show, opening December 13th, and I thought I would write some words to go with them. Here are my texts, and the images:
He carried me off, his lips on my hair – Dec 13
This work suggests the desire to be carried away, to leave this world, through the gift of communion with Nature, or in this case, a deer. The human figure and the deer are both caught in a moment of suspension, they hover above the earth, in a space which is only just here. They inhabit a ‘thin place’, where different worlds gently intersect.
I touch my throat, the place where you enter
Sept 13
This piece emerged after about three years of working on it. The female figure has always been there, but the figure to her right, once a faun, then a man, and now a fully grown spirit deer, is descending from a higher region, perhaps we could call it Heaven. The deer is bringing to the woman, and in particular her throat centre, the gifts of ‘deerness’ such as speed, grace, beauty, silent movement and acute sensing.
My Dog keeps watch as I pray.
This work also emerged over several years. The dog figure has been there from the beginning, inspired by a very fine dog who lived with me for 14 years, and who died last year. Initially there was a tiny girl figure floating, somhow attached to her chest, but I was never really satisfied with the image like this. Earlier this year I attended a Benedictine vespers service in Norcia, Italy. The monks, all dressed in white, bent at ninety degrees from their hips as they prayed and sang. The altar was full of light. It was dazzling.
When I came home I returned to this work and through the process of workng I suddenly knew that the figure with the dog (me) would be blending with her through the process of prayer. My arms emerge though my back, which is where the soul enters and leaves the body, according to some indigenous traditions. The dog would be keeping watch over me, as my dog always did.
New Artist’s Statement:
I like to walk up mountains, and I love being on the tops where you can see huge hares and eagles, you can pass over valleys of bees and thin forests; there will be spiky shiny flowers with no stems growing, the backs of their faces pressed into the thin soil. These are fine but lonely places; no one goes there, much. You feel as if you can step into another world, and not come back. I love the feeling of balance, of being on the edge of something.
When I work I look for a narrow pass of edginess, of suspension; the feeling of being poised, teetering; only just here, existing in a thin place.
If I also ask for the vision of animals to help me, then I can be carried, or cooked by the heat of their cells, eaten or absorbed: emerge re-formed; wiser.
January 2014