Keep on dreaming

Artwork: Mural by Kenny Random, Keep on dreaming…, Padova, Italy, 2019

Keep on dreaming…awesome wall mural by Kenny Random (@kennyrandom) in Padova, Italy. The cat especially makes me smile!

memorised by heart

Artwork: Miniature portrait of Byron believed to have been painted when the poet was 29 years old and living in Venice, c.1817

I came across a story yesterday about a Russian translator and lecturer, Tatiana Grigorivna Gnedich, who in 1944 was arrested and sentenced to ten years in a Russian labour camp for treason to “the Soviet Motherland”. The facts of the sentence are not detailed. Up until that point Tatiana, having been born into a family of scholars and poets, was an exceptional translator and teacher of foreign languages, speaking fluent English and French. Prior to her imprisonment Tatiana had memorised in English the sixteen cantos of more than 16,000 thousand lines of Lord Byron’s epic poem, Don Juan. While in prison she was able to secure paper to write on and accomplished the extraordinary feat over several years of translating the memorised Don Juan into Russian. Upon her release Tatiana’s translation was published and became the classic Russian version of Byron’s poem.

Such an achievement of the human mind speaks of Tatiana’s love of language and brilliance as a translator, but also a strength of will that in such dehumanising conditions she was able to transcend to create something truly remarkable.

During English literature professor and critic George Steiner’s Gifford Lecture at Glasgow University in 1990, he spoke about this story and said, “There is nothing you can do to a human being who is like that. No state can touch this. No despair can touch it.” And what stood out for me were his words, “What you don’t know by heart, you haven’t loved deeply enough.”

the elopement

Artwork: Chalk drawing by David Zinn, the Elopement, 2024, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Another magical chalk drawing from David Zinn (@davidzinn), The Elopement. Very Romeo and Juliet!

Ara

Artwork: Katie Paterson, Ara, 2016

Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s artwork melds a poetic sensibility with philosophical and scientific inquiry. Spanning thematic explorations of nature, geology, technology, and cosmology, Paterson’s research-based projects often involve collaborations with specialists in astronomy, astrophysics, genetics, and nanotechnology. At its core, her work considers humanity’s place on earth and within the cosmos in relation to the concept of time.

I was initially drawn to one of Paterson’s artworks that I wrote an art story for, Vatnajökull (the sound of), 2007-8, where a live phone line was connected to an Icelandic glacier, via an underwater microphone submerged in Jökulsárlón lagoon. For the exhibition’s duration, anyone from around the world could call the number 07757001122 to hear the glacier as the ice melted. The strangeness, immediacy, even audacity of the project showcased another key aspect of Paterson’s work: bringing the viewer and the natural world into a close encounter, scaling what is often immense to an intimate and relatable dimension.

An especially poetic work in its simplicity and evocativeness, Ara (2016), features a string of festoon lights where each bulb produces a luminosity relative to the brightness of every star in a constellation. Ara forms part of a series recreating all 88 constellations, again creating a bridge between the cosmos and humanity; connecting us to what seems unknowable, distant and sublime.

one day, I chose blue

Artwork: Shim Moon-Seup, The Presentation, Acrylic on canvas, 2018

 

A poem inspired by Korean artist Shim Moon-Seup’s painting:

one day, I chose blue

not for any reason

but the feeling

of so many memories

wrapped in the sea

and sky—

from the most intense

hue, to faded light

perhaps it wasn’t

even a choice, it was

simple and right


(Shim Moon-Seup, The Presentation, Acrylic on canvas, 2018)

Give Love

Artwork: by Wabi Sabi (@wordsbywabisabi), Bristol

Scrabble graffiti by@wordsbywabisabi. Give Love. Give. Love. Add Peace into the mix and 2024 sounds hopeful.

Light and Freedom

Artwork: Mural by Millo, Rabat, Morocco, 2023

Street artist Millo recently created this beautiful mural in Rabat, Morocco, for the Rabat Street Art Festival. He wrote this about the experience:

”Rabat known also as the city of light, Ville lumière, it’s the kingdom’s capital and recently also the African capital of culture, with its cosmopolitan elegant avenues and its blend of modern and traditional Islamic aesthetics.

The wall is located on one of the main thoroughfares of the city, on a building mainly occupied by people undergoing oncology treatment due to the nearby hospital.

My character is holding the traditional, intricately patterned, Moroccan lantern, fanoos, from whose butterflies flies freely.

’Light’ and ‘freedom’, two powerful words if you put them together, especially in this so much needed moment.”

Le lac des cygnes

Artwork: OAK OAK Advent calendar day 7/24, Le lac des cygnes, Paris, 2023

As part of the lead up to Christmas, Paris-based street artist OAK OAK (@oakoak_street_art) is creating a street version of an Advent calendar, creating a new work for each of the 24 days. Day 7 was this humorous and poetic work, Le lac des cygnes.

Glider

Artwork: Mural by NEAN, Glider, Wicklow, Ireland, 2023

Starting to feel like summer…great mural by NEAN (@nean_kingdom) titled Glider for The Walls Project in Wicklow, Ireland.

My Blue Moon

Artwork: Waqas Khan, My Blue Moon, 2023, Acrylic and ink on canvas

Pakistani artist, Waqas Khan’s work is about love. He recounts a story from his childhood where the village elders would gather and tell stories of Sufi saints, and Khan reflects that what resonated for him was the great quality of these saints being their universal love. Khan says of the experience: “People would come and sit in the communal space and sing about the Sufis. I was the kid holding the cups of tea. They would just talk about the good things for everybody in this world—love, peace and kindness. Sufi for me is behaviour, how you are with others.”

The word that comes to mind when encountering Khan’s work is sublime. Not the overwhelming sense of awe and terror, of an unknown natural force. While his work has a beauty ascribed to the sublime, it relates more to tranquility, a sense of the infinite as if engaging in a meditative experience with the potential to alter one’s perception of the universe, of life.

Khan began his art career in college in Lahore focused on the figurative miniaturist art from the 17th century. He adapted the precision and delicacy to his abstract process of creating minute, hand drawn circles on archival paper that requires dedication and patience of numerous hours of painstaking work, and that evolves into these patterns, both mathematical and uniquely organic in their cosmology. I’ve written two art stories for Khan’s mesmerising works: Tranquil Pool, 2012, and Breath of The Compassionate IV, 2014. Khan was recently featured in a group exhibition in Rome, TIME FUTURE: Memories, Past and Present (Alberto di Castro, Rome, December 1 2023 – January 20, 2024). Here is an exquisite work featuring one of my favourite hues of blue, ultramarine blue (deepening towards Prussian blue in this artwork), titled My Blue Moon, 2023.

Late Fragment

Artwork: Detail of Antonio Canova’s sculpture, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, 1787-93.

A simply beautiful poem by Raymond Carver, Late Fragment:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on this earth.

The Map of Love

The Map of Love is a beautifully written and profoundly engaging novel; one of my very favourites I read again and again. Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif weaves a love story, both past and present, with the the political history and current tensions in the place of her birth, Cairo, Egypt. Using different textual forms and voices, this tale set predominantly in 1900, is a story of worlds colliding as Lady Anna Winterbourne travels to Egypt where she falls in love with Sharif, an Egyptian Nationalist who has dedicated his life to the cause of his country and its liberation. Decades later, Isabel Parkman, a descendent of Anna and Sharif, makes the journey to Egypt with an old family trunk full of books and journals which reveals her ancestors’ story.

A passage from the book has always resonated for me and which speaks to the essence of this tale: the many meanings of “love” in Arabic:

“‘Hubb’ is love, ‘ishq’ is love that entwines two people together, ‘shaghaf’ is love that nests in the chambers of the heart. ‘hayam’ is love that wanders the earth, ‘teeh’ is love in which you lose yourself, ‘walah’ is love that carries sorrow within it, ‘sababah’ is love that exudes from your pores, ‘hawa’ is love the shares its name with ‘air’ and with ‘falling’, ‘gharam’ is love that is willing to pay the price.”

Drawing Parallels

Drawing Parallels is a three-part short film series exploring the creative collaboration of Album Surf and KORUA, and the idea of drawing parallels between surf and snow. The first film focuses on the art-making process via a discussion between Matt Parker (Album) and Aaron Schwartz (KORUA), a meditation on art, board design, functionality and the beauty of collaboration. The second film explores a trip to Mammoth Mountain with Matt Parker and the Album family, accompanied by Nicholas Wolken and Aaron Schwartz (Korua), showcasing how the custom artist boards meet the snow. Enjoy!

(Third film yet to be released.)

how deep is the sea?

Artwork: Photograph by Graziano Panfili, how deep is the sea? San Felice Circeo, Lazio, Italy.

The sky and the sea; two of my favourite elements in this one image by Italian photographer Graziano Panfili, titled How deep is the sea? What draws me in is the mirroring of colours—the intense hue of green-blue— between sky and sea, creating a strange sense of inversion, where sky and sea are almost interchangeable. The photograph was taken in San Felice Circeo, a small village by the sea in Lazio, Italy. Actually, there are four elements I love in this photograph: the sea, sky, clouds and a horizon; horizon lines fascinate me!

writing is like breathing

Image: Pablo Neruda (source: www.fundacionneruda.org)

I came across these words today by one of my favourite poets, Pablo Neruda, and it resonated greatly:

“For me writing is like breathing. I could not live without breathing and I could not live without writing.”

Kevin and his spooktacles...

Artwork: by David Zinn, Kevin and his spooktacles, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2023

From the marvellous world of David Zinn (@davidzinn), meet Kevin: “To be fair, Kevin bumps in the night because his prescription is 150 years out of date.”

Boo!

Give peace

Artwork: Oak Oak, Give Peace, Givors, France, 2022

A poetic stencil piece by Oak Oak (@oakoak_street_art) titled, Give peace. The artwork was created in 2022 with some school children in Givors who collaborated with the artist to find the grid, the majority agreeing that a peace dove should be painted flying from it.

The Green Line

In 2004 Belgian artist Francis Alÿs, who resides in Mexico, performed an action, a walk, through Jerusalem demarcating with a leaking can of green paint the “green line” representing one side of the partitioning of Jerusalem. Fifty-eight litres of paint were used to trace twenty-four kilometres. This statutory division of Jerusalem after the 1947/48 conflict between Israeli and Arab forces was along two front lines. This “green line” was marked on a map in November 1948 by commander of the Jerusalem Israeli forces, Moshe Dayan, after the ceasefire agreement was signed between himself and the representative of the Arab Legion, Abdullah al-Tel. The line made by Abdullah al-Tel was in red and between the two lines was a topographically contested area of sixty to eighty metres.  

Through the action Alÿs said he wanted to explore the axiom: “Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic.” He further elaborates saying: “What I try to do really is to spread stories, to generate situations that can provoke through their experience a sudden unexpected distancing from the immediate situation and can shake up your assumptions about the way things are, that can destabilize and open up, for just an instant—in a flash—a different vision of the situation, as if from the inside.”

As part of the film documentation, Alÿs asked both Palestinians and Israelis to comment on the film, which can be found here: http://francisalys.com/the-green-line/.

In the context of the current situation in Israel/Palestine, such a gesture might seem arbitrary and meaningless given the lives harmed and lost, and the overall devastation on both sides. Yet as the action illustrates the conflict is rooted in a history of contested territory, conflict and divisiveness that makes any objective understanding that much harder, or as Alÿs suggested, a different vision or perspective so difficult to achieve in such incendiary times.

 

(Film documentation, The Green Line, Jerusalem, 2004, 17.41 mins. In collaboration with Philippe Bellaiche, Rachel Leah Jones, and Julien Devaux.)