Thursday 20 May 2010

Parasite

I'm working on a few things at the moment, here's a little detail from a small (smaller than A4) piece...


But I've been concentrating most of my energies on this new much larger piece. It's about the same height as the piece I exhibited at Gas Hall recently, but not so wide. So it's about A1 near enough in length. Here's where I'd got to at the begining of this week...


I made a few pencil sketches of this piece before I began it, and I despaired at its beginings, as it doesn't fit as comfortably as I'd wanted into the format of the page. I wanted to give the impression of a column of energy, starting with the roots of the parasite clinging onto the base of the tree, and crawling up the trunk...


...or maybe it could be draining into the ground, draining the energy of the tree. Depends on whether the glass is half full or empty I suppose.


There's a really gorgeous Nick Drake song called Parasite. For some reason I associate his intricate moody music with my drawings. That music is so English. When I hear the quick, delicate guitar phrasings I can smell the rain on the soil, hear it prickle the leaves and see the light filtering through the branches. Trees are brilliant chemists without knowing it. But then knowing a thing I think is sometimes overrated. You can be a thing without knowing it, in fact knowing what you are can often be totally detrimental. To be without knowing. Sounds like a kind of bliss to me.

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