narrative

When I was younger I would often retreat into the idea of using other people's expression(s) as a way to communicate my feelings. This – at the time at least – seemed so much more efficient than my stumblings and ineptitude.

The best analogy would be making a Mix Tape for a secret lost love. The tape is an act of intimacy in the form of a contemplative soliloquy. The only issue being that the soliloquy is penned, spoken or sung by others.

Later this became much more sophisticated in that I explored the idea of using a complex established narrative as a metaphor for personal issues.

With the diversity of the characters and plot lines in the work I felt I could communicate my emotions to the real protagonists without necessarily confronting them directly. It provided a hiding place and I could get it off my chest without losing much skin.

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up. – James Baldwin

This wasn't so obvious to me personally until I finished the first installation of Silence* in 1994. I had immersed myself in Oscar Wilde's Salome* and was addressing various characters and dialogue from the play.

When the work was completed, I quite violently realised that the characters were much fuller than I had envisaged and the story read like a diary of the 12 months prior to that work.

It was both exciting and terrifying in that I imagined I would be 'exposed' by it's exhibition.

There are no stories without meaning. And I am one of those men who can find it even when others fail to see it. Afterwards the story becomes the book of the living, like a blaring trumpet that raises from the tomb those who have been dust for centuries...
– Umberto Eco, Baudolino

With drei, the narratives themselves are not penned but rather implied.

Rather than attach myself to a pre-made story I explore the relationships between people, places and objects in context.

Whilst the various elements might be representative on a personal level, I like the lack of a definite answer.

I want the viewer to look into a created world and experience that violence that I myself experience(d).

* Opens in a new window.

drei #47

1000mm x 700mm Lightjet Print. Edition of 10 (2006)