Nostalgia 5 -- Dreams and Graphic novels.

 

   Title - A swell in the ocean - Composition - 2023 \ charcoal on concrete. H x W --- 110 x 230 cm

I really like the  concrete as a medium although it's not very practical for storage or transportation. Presently the bare are is painted a sky blue which when I have a chance I'll remove. I'm getting there with this piece though.

The theme of the ocean ran through other sculptures aswell. I remember the morning when I got the message to go to James Hospital. It was my last day teaching and I had brought the students out to the cinema, when I left the cinema I had 57 missed calls. I met the rest of my family at the hospital  and they gave us tea and everything changed.  

My two brothers and I went to the shopping centre to get stuff to make sandwiches  for people calling to the house. A surreal experience where the whole ground below you has been rocked and your reality will never be the same. Time for me seemed like the ocean stretching and then pulling together and then crashing like waves, and repeating and we were like a resonance within it. The physical side of my mother had disappeared but her resonance would be eternally in the ocean and there somehow we would met again. 

I remember also when I was 12 or so I had a series of dreams about the sea, the first one was shortly after my best friend went to a different school and really never saw each other then. I began to relate these dreams to separation and loss. The dreams were not of drowning but more being disconnected and floating. They would start off on dry land and everything would slowly be immersed in water filling up.

These dreams came back to me when I moved home in 2003 maybe unconsciously I made the connection of loss again with my Mother, who knows ? But I began to have similar dreams to the ocean and immersion. 

At the time the time I was also  reading a lot of graphic novels which became a great resource of inspiration and solace. Writers such as Chris Weir, Charles Burns and Edward Gorey and a multitude of others. I seemed to be drawn to the works of  graphic novelists that at a later date I would realise had gone through similar senses of loss like Seth in 'It's a life good if you don't weaken' or Chris Weir in Quimby Mouse. I still love the  illustrations of Edward Gorey and I used his style  when drawing the sea because the texture is similar to thorns. 

When I lived on South Circular Road I would play music or listen to Donal Dineen on the radio - Donal Dineen Ain't Talking No Disco - YouTube . Matches also enabled me to manipulate the surface and create an EFFECT of fluidity. The large sculptures were constructed and I never knew how long they would take to finish. It's like they exist in a parallel universe and they have to match in this universe, I physically work through trial and error and finally if I am very lucky I discover the piece. I recognize the narrative after the piece is almost complete.