British Mythologist Dr Martin Shaw tells stories, makes up stories, revises stories, translates myths and talks about them. Incessantly. I find his spoken word and books a new discipline revealing a new path of spiritual and cultural forest exploration. And it is as if I am in a hall or under a tree listening intently. Recently I watched a short video of controversial New York composer Philip Glass talking about what is required for the arts. For visual art it is looking and for music performance it is listening. Overstating the obvious but nevertheless it was a refocus reminder. My world, in and out of family, is around and outside and inside music and visual art. I have had a switch turned on in my head recently that has taken me beyond the aesthetic appeal of art as I struggle and wonder what on earth art making is for and about. My looking has changed to see that the works in our house, on walls and in draws, on desks half finished and pinned on boards as stories in process, chapters, phrases, moments. And so too are those at GOMA, NGV, QCA and MONA and on trains and subway walls. Stories and myths that invite us to look and then to listen as if it was a performance giving voice to the still small voice of the artist finding and telling her/his/their story in a mysterious darkness that we interpret and wonder at in an “ah-ha” moment – eventually – or in a dissonant disiplined looking and wondering that leaves us maybe judging the aesthetic or modality rather than wondering about the artist and the story.
The following are some visual stories of mine from about 2020.
What stories are hidden in these?
These – below – are quick drawings responding to some of my experiences in Cambodia in 1974/75 at the height of the Vietnam war with its Cambodian and Pol Pot Killing fields knocking at the door.
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