Barcelona in a Bag

Words can’t express how marvellous it has been to receive a bundle of crisp well framed images of my performance piece for Fringe Arts Bath, Belongings show. Curator Nimmi Naidoo has done me truly proud in capturing these (and more) photographs of me channeling the performance space and “becoming exile” through unpacking two suitcases of carefully assembled objects and momentos into a tribute piece for Spanish Republicans exiled at the defeat of the Second Republic in 1939.

Once there I was all but oblivious of the wider environment and so it was especially revealing to see two observers looking into the tribute space from the other side of the window – from the outside on the pavement to 9 New Bond Street. Without any context they watch me ‘decant’ two long dead spiders transported from my studio in a jar. I won’t give their provenance or symbolism here but they have a deep significance to the project, which these two ladies could barely begin to guess. What must they have made of this act, knowing it to be art of some kind yet not knowing in the slightest what it was all about.

So I’m extremely grateful to Nimmi for the invitation to create this piece  in a public space and for witnessing and documenting the event so beautifully. If I was aware of anything outside myself it was of Nimmi’s lens, alert and watchful. Nimmi I am so glad you were there.

It’s with a sense of surprise that my painting  practice continues to develop in curious and diverse ways. For now I’m simply going with the line thing and watching patiently as the triangle comes out to play. Triangles? Me? Also – recognisable shapes (defined forms) me? Me of the nebulous not to say smog drenched canvas…Yes, me.

And when the triangles (two yes) burst forth it was really quite joyful. Trees! I knew this was landscape and that these were trees. I almost pointed in that way small children do just before looking back over their shoulder at the adult observer in charge, to share the delightful identification – that moment of recognition which the young mind seems to adore (we later take it for granted don’t we?)

So perhaps I should not be so surprised after all to find another landscape with trees painted by the much younger me – to which this new landscape appears to refer ( a complex reference to be sure). Mexico City, at the age of 5 I painted the first image in commemoration and as narrative. The story can be repeated elsewhere – here it is simply the backcloth to unconscious memory in visual form, which joins me to my former self. Trees I say! Trees! And the moment is childlike, wondrous and joyful. The power of paint to connect pathways to and from the in-between is breathtaking. It feels like coming home.