CosmiKnot

Here is a link to a comic strip I've done with a long standing friend and interrogator The Aug Stone. I love Aug's affinity to a natural state of wonder, which made making the comic a total pleasure. He gave me free rein with clear instructions as to the setting. Writing a comic is much more than just filling in speech bubbles. Aug has created an existential miss-en-scene without breaking sweat. His visualisation of the scenario is genuinely bizarre and dreamlike without feeling contrived. Funnily enough Aug thinks that the story is perhaps too obviously personal but I've been working on it a while and it still intrigues and niggles away at my unconscious. The story seems to lead towards a meaning but never wholly explains itself, which is exactly what I want from a tale, rather than a moral observation or rousing resolution. Click the picture to see the whole thing.

In June last year I installed my Doctorate painting exhibition at UEL. I don’t like to say it was about David Bowie’s song Life on Mars, though not because it wasn’t (it was) but because I’m not sure it was “about” anything. It was more an attempt to capture some kind of essence that I felt Bowie represents. One of the things I love about Bowie from that song onwards is how he captures the meaninglessness of modern life but fills his songs with meaning. The meaning, however, is not something easy to put your finger on. It is more like a feeling of yearning and hope in the face of… well yes meaninglessness. You might think I’m being pretentious but this depth of feeling is what keeps us as humans dreaming that we can ultimately connect through creative experience. That is partially what Bowie means to me. He can be viewed as the personification of Camus’ urge to live life as fully and creatively as possible in response to the Sisyphusian struggles we all face. But let me be clear...

white feather As I lay on the black disc of the 8 ft in Demeter trampoline entombed by netted walls staring down the wishing well of infinity curve blue a small white cloud was dropped into the azure field of my vision. Whereupon it became A tiny fluffy white feather thousands of miles above the earth falling silently like a speeding weightless bullet onto the tip of my right big toe. What does this mean? I wonder staring at the clouds. Oh I give up.

Free Fall Still got shingle from Saint Margaret’s bay in my shoes As I step through the train doors My parachute of text books Carefully packed Sitting snuggly on my back 54321 Go Down into the city we descend A strip of pinky grey against a dirty turquoise sky. Like a smudge of bees on the horizon In a cartoon riffing on the follies Of urban man. Here is the news I feel steely waves crashing in my feet I got the still got shingle From Saint Margaret’s bay In my trainers From when we sat in the car sipping tea Starring at the sea Your dark tresses Hardening my softness Monday morning blues.