Blog
Chloe Steele writes about my Flash Exhibition
07/12/2022
It began to make more sense when I saw the room full of clocks and I thought I saw them move or turn into people, they all looked so different
Imagine if shadows were made of liquid colour, that spread and dripped and fell out of time and hope and ideas and fun – fun’s a dumb word. But this lot are dumb, standing aloof, posturing, posing in their hosiery and their hats and shoes, contorted on edgy planes, angular and supple made laughably pretending they are cut from emerald, sewn from a harlequin’s stocking worn as a hat, face like a plate with a pair of marbles for eyes rolled in opposite directions, one to the ceiling, the other next door. Next door is next a friend, perhaps a friend, perhaps a no one. No one’s face is pinched sucked into its tiny hoot with painted paintwork sloshing around looking stroked strange by five fingers, it is islanded this personage, totally on its own. Nailed apart. This trophy wall, girls and old women’s stroke men’s faces swirl and swell and suck-in diminish laughing down a tunnel and seen through a prism they seem caught in the trap of light becoming at the same time finishing. Clipped and cut. Their finish is in their cut out. The full-blown cut out curiosities crowd the middle, a gaggle of gawpers and gigglers fanny about and gesticulate and chatter nonsense with Alice and Maggie and anyone else who wanders in. Everybody sucked into this whirlpool of colour and magic and delight, delight found in the full spectrum of colour jammed together red and pink and brown, highlighter lines, acid hues, calligraphic shapes and the sliding geometric floor of some demented medieval hall that one imagines falls towards us, heading towards us cyclonic in a rush, in an absurd dance macabre, this silky parade of the not normal with legs made of marble and stained glass, hands of gilt and all the vivid colours of a Shahnameh as it catches light its pages lift and curl and float away into a configuration of such astonishing beauty, where armoirs become human and clocks grow heads, and feet look like noses and clouds jigsaw like moustaches. And those three noble heads, cool in their knowing three-dimension, preside over this House, this slipped court, with their eyes sliding into their noses they shout, sadly, ‘Order, order’, and this lot freeze into this momentary configuration. Say cheese. Caught in the act. But never caught, always ready to power flight always in the process of becoming some thing, some body, some colour some other, shape.
Imagine if shadows were made of liquid colour, that spread and dripped and fell out of time and hope and ideas and fun – fun’s a dumb word. But this lot are dumb, standing aloof, posturing, posing in their hosiery and their hats and shoes, contorted on edgy planes, angular and supple made laughably pretending they are cut from emerald, sewn from a harlequin’s stocking worn as a hat, face like a plate with a pair of marbles for eyes rolled in opposite directions, one to the ceiling, the other next door. Next door is next a friend, perhaps a friend, perhaps a no one. No one’s face is pinched sucked into its tiny hoot with painted paintwork sloshing around looking stroked strange by five fingers, it is islanded this personage, totally on its own. Nailed apart. This trophy wall, girls and old women’s stroke men’s faces swirl and swell and suck-in diminish laughing down a tunnel and seen through a prism they seem caught in the trap of light becoming at the same time finishing. Clipped and cut. Their finish is in their cut out. The full-blown cut out curiosities crowd the middle, a gaggle of gawpers and gigglers fanny about and gesticulate and chatter nonsense with Alice and Maggie and anyone else who wanders in. Everybody sucked into this whirlpool of colour and magic and delight, delight found in the full spectrum of colour jammed together red and pink and brown, highlighter lines, acid hues, calligraphic shapes and the sliding geometric floor of some demented medieval hall that one imagines falls towards us, heading towards us cyclonic in a rush, in an absurd dance macabre, this silky parade of the not normal with legs made of marble and stained glass, hands of gilt and all the vivid colours of a Shahnameh as it catches light its pages lift and curl and float away into a configuration of such astonishing beauty, where armoirs become human and clocks grow heads, and feet look like noses and clouds jigsaw like moustaches. And those three noble heads, cool in their knowing three-dimension, preside over this House, this slipped court, with their eyes sliding into their noses they shout, sadly, ‘Order, order’, and this lot freeze into this momentary configuration. Say cheese. Caught in the act. But never caught, always ready to power flight always in the process of becoming some thing, some body, some colour some other, shape.
