"Bringing together my three books spawned over 20 years into one space, is odd. The tectonic of words and images reflecting the world and worlds absorbed and expressed over my consumed time. Moving from the pseudonym of Jonathan Acorn in Cairo, to coming out as my own identity and releasing the layers of self worthiness in an ecdysis like dance of potential future relevance”
Imagine you are in your favourite bar; 'Sean Ui Neachtain’s' in Galway. My freshly pulled pint of Guinness and spontaneous music sessions throughout the day and night. Beware of the nights.
Through the misty dazed light, a beautiful woman walks through the door. In the words of Austin Clarke, in the poem 'the planters daughter' when the daughter of the pubs landlord walked into the room; “the men drank deep and were silent”. You saw this woman and then you recognised her and all the memories come spiraling back. The only problem is that she does not recognise you!
Multiply that by three and that is what you have with having spawned, three pieces of physically manifested spoken word-art over 20 years in three very different books that speak in the same dialects; hopeful yet aspirational, in their true possibilities and intentions.
Seeing them together for the first time was also primal in wanting to be the first. Wedlock to previous historic ideas.
Under the blazing sun was a beautiful landscape to play with. A dead photographer with a wealth of unpublished visual gifts. A contemporary and famous philosopher/translator willing to reinterprete. Me pretending to be someone else; (me) and my Egyptian 'brother' Sherif, who owned the publishing company, flocked us into a vague semblance of ever evolving flowing purpose.
'Odd poems and slogans' was four years later. Living in Bali. Very open and aware to the latent spirit of Balinese Hinduism and my own desire to capture my past in a solidly choreographed body of work. It coincided with my largest and the largest contemporary art exhibition ever staged in Bali with my twin Balinese 'brother' Ida Bagus Indra. Powerful time and interesting work.
'Try as I might' was the child born of unintentional but deeply enjoyed Burren time. Mike Mulcaire, my 'brother' and 20 year partner in crime in our ever evolving project 'resting places'; insisted that we created a book after he saw my 72 hour purge of paintings. I also spent one day wandering the Burren with graphite charcoal sticks and 45 meters of grease-proof paper and solicitously making rubbings of 300 year old eclisiaistic artifacts. The book is joyfully interspersed with these dark visual outcrops and poems and slogans forged from my past.
Together, they are more my sorting of current re-defining.
