Visual Poetry
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View Art Gallery presents the group show
VISUAL POETRY
April 20 - June 18, 2023
View Art Gallery
159 Hotwell Road
Bristol BS8 4RY
United Kingdom
info@viewartgallery.co.uk
JESSICA JOY BROX TIM BURGESS
CLARE FERGUSON-WALKER
MIKE STUART
JOANNA SWANN
FRAN WILLIAMS
TERENCE WILSON FLETCHER
VISUAL POETRY
In this exhibition artists visualise poems, creating art from the imagery that they see and hear in the words. It may be an explicit representation, depicting scenes or symbols, or it may be a sense of the poem, expressing what they feeling.
The subject matter of the written and visual art is wide-ranging. There is darkness and melancholia alongside joy and optimism. There is also a sense of ambiguity, where our own personal connections will influence our emotional reaction.
The exhibition will be running during Mental Health Awareness Week and some of the artists focus on the sensitive issues of illness and recovery, both from their personal experience and responding to those of poets.
Some of the artists are also poets and have a symbiotic relationship between their two practices. Other artists use words in their artwork, either in the beginning of their creative process or as part of the visual output. Some are simply inspired by poems they have read or heard.
We have also invited poets to respond to some of the art, reversing the process, a form of writing called ekphrastic poetry.
Words are an integral part of the exhibition and will also be on display, allowing the exploration of the relationship between the two artistic genres.
Jessica Brox Chapman
“I am an American born figurative artist based in the South of England. My work revolves around the figure directly observed. I consider gesture to be what empowers my single figure pieces. Relating to the model as a human being with feelings and life and not as object to draw or paint is integral to my figurative work. I enjoy creating an abstraction using the figure as a point of departure. I mainly use oils and soft pastel.”
More recently, Jessica has ‘come out’ as a poet. The Visual Poetry exhibition has given her the opportunity (and courage) to share her very personal poetry that informs her painting practice and also stands alone as works of art.
In this catlaogue we have the privelege of featuring several pieces of Jessica’s writing that is either directly related to a painting or inspires a series of work.
Lately I am lingering In a place All light and shadows There is nothing My eyes hold everything
I seek I chase
As it gives flight
A beast
A demon
In the night
Stretch out my arms
Sp desperately
Get on my knees I plead
Love me love me
Say you do
I need I need I need
My monster’s eyes are full of fire
He plucks me like a flower
Yes I love you
This is how
My love for you is power
Beauty and the Beast oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm
Blessing oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm
grounded
wingless
If there is only the now
It must be fully giving
It must live feverishly with its feet on then moving earth
Not seeing above treetops
Only feeling
Warm bark under fingers
Still low air
Inhaling all the gifts
Lost in the beautiful darkness of the wood
There are angels up and beyond Angels have wings
But no flesh
We have no wings but hearts of flesh and blood
There is no light
Where no one lives. I cry
“I am light I am light I will burn bright”
When extinguised
There is darkness
Only then do the creatures come And make burrows here
Burrows
oil on canvas, 100 x 180 cm
Blood Remembering oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm
More than just our own experiences and memories and the forgetting and the feeling, this blood remembering can encompass another’s, can overlap with another’s, like two circles overlapping. Two circles full of gathered up sweetness and senses, some of the gathered stuff can mix together like paint to make a colour manifest, a colour that was already there. Sometimes we can remember and know each other even if we’ve only just met.
Is it the call of your soul or the impulse of the untried heart?
Come in
Yes come in
Into my secret garden
You are scared I see
You are afraid
The beast is love the beast is fire
In my secret garden
Where beauty lays down
Down on pillows of moss
Run your hands through lavender
mint fennel
Feet on cool stone
damp grass
Patches of sun’s warmth
All shadows and light
Come see
Come be with me
I’m in my secret garden
Secret Garden oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm
Love me love me love 2 oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm
Stupid feverish dream
I walked a thousand miles to shake it off shedding layers
But the heat was coming from the inside Where the fire is
In the end I became And now I’m on fire
Flaming out Outstretched
If I am
I will be everything
You have seen a glimpse
The swell far offshore
It’s momentum
You know it is time to swim
It’s so big underneath the water
Churns
Plunging
Windstorm
waterfall
wild windstorm
found it On the ground It Dampens my skin
I
Agitates Burns fire
Waterfall
oil on canvas, 110 x 170 cm
Terence Wilson-Fletcher
In his own words:
“Terence Wilson-Fletcher has been painting for hundreds of years. He was trained at the Royal Academy Schools. He has won numerous awards, including the National Portrait Gallery Award. His paintings can be found in universities, embassies, royal homes, attics, skips and rubbish dumps. When he’s not painting, he’s sleeping. He likes this quote by Schopenhauer: ‘The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasised, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy’.”
Targets, oil on board, 176 x 198 cm
Gold, oil on board, 150 x 120 cm
Authoratarian Play Book, oil on canvas, 160 x 190 cm
Hope, oil on canvas, 190 x 150 cm
Fran uses words as inspiration for her end product and also in the creative process. A painting starts with phrases written on the panel and is hidden with layering of paint, as the sub-conscious takes over.
For Visual Poetry, she shares some of the written inspiration for her work. In particular, she is a daily reader of the writing of Caroline Myss, which she describes as “initimate and centred, asking the bigger questions about the mystical nature at the heart of our most ordinary lives.”
No-one in chaos, no-one in the midst of madness, drenched by noise, can possibly make contact with the grace of hope. Nor can a person who needs to make significant life changes possibly hear the direction she or he is receiving when surrounded by the endless distractions of the sensory world. Stillness is required. Silence is required. And for that reason, your life comes to a standstill. But it is not your life that has come to a standstill, but your distractions. Often such an experience gives the appearance that nothing is happening, and in the physical world, nothing is happening. Nothing needs to happen. All the activity that needs to take place now is within you. Such silence is an invitation to go within yourself to resolve the true orgin of chaos, which begins with confronting your fears of survival and aloneness on this earth - fears that may compel you to make decisions without wise thought of the consequences.
Waiting is a Bhodi Tree, a time for introspection and reflection, a time to review where your life decisions have taken you and how you should or should not move forward. Stillness is a time to assess what it is you believe about your spiritual life and the quality of your life choices.
Caroline Myss
Fran WIlliams
And if we are entitled to anything in this life, we are entitled to discover the depths to which we can love others oil and graphite on driftwood, 72 x 26 cm
Recognising that the truth is pursuing our souls oil and graphite on wood, 22 x 30 cm
I Will Listen oil and graphite on wood, 22 x 33 cm
“Everyone needs to be witnessed, to have a sense of knowing that someone knows you’re alive, that you’re here and to feel that your life matters... everyone wants to know that”
Caroline Myss
Truth is the nuclear power to your soul graphite on wood, 57 x 22 cm
Change arrives because you need to move forward not retreat to the past graphite on wood, 57 x 22 cm
Hello Goodbye, oil and acrylic on panel, 13 x 20 cm
Under The Bodhi Tree, oil on panel, 23 x 23 cm
The Agreement, graphite on found wood, 23 x 20 cm
“The journey of life is the unification of fragmentation. Fragments are units of power that are out of contrl. We make agreements to come and collect ourselves”
Caroline Myss
Love Alone is Not a Truth, That Love Heals is a Truth graphite on found wood, 15 x 12 cm
“The Divine is in the shadows and in the silence and in the noise. It is for you to notice the design of the events of your life and to reflect on the meaning and significance of that design on each particular day - for each design will never come again”.
Thomas Merton
This Day Shall Never Come Again oil and graphite on panel, 13 x 20 cm
of Egypt
His Own Heart
oil and graphite on panel, 20 x 31 cm
“The one who sits in solitude and quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking and seeing; yet against one thing shall he continually battle: that is, his own heart”
Anthony
Clare Ferguson-Walker
Clare is a multi-talented artist who can be seen in numerous creative events, either exhibiting her sculpture and painting or performing her poetry and stand-up routine. She may even be singing her latest song. For the Visual Poetry exhibition, Clare has combined two of her talents to create a painting and poem that co-exist as a piece of art. Each informs the other, offering the viewer/reader alternative meaning.
“My artwork haunts me in visions almost constantly and the only thing I can do to relive the pressure of that is to make them. I’ve come to realize that they are the language of my sub-conscious mind communicating with me and thus can be interpreted as one might do a dream. Characters, animals, symbols and positions all hold relevance and make up a kind of narrative interpretation of reality, although of course they all come from a sub-reality, another world parallel to this one.
I often don’t really know what they are about until they are finished and I can look at them and try to decipher their meaning, they are often about sadness, beauty and the concept of what that means, grief as well as joy and also often feature archetypal characters from myths and legends.”
“Smoke’s Lament”
by Clare Ferguson-Walker
They say nine out of ten cats prefer Whiskas, I wouldn’t know, I’ve only ever been fed the finest oily fish, smoked salmon and cod roe, I’m called Smoke, a dark mysterious name, elusive with a hint of danger
But if I’m totally honest, to that way of life I’m a complete stranger. I get called Smokeliscious, Smokey Dokey Boo Boo, and I’m kept indoors She rubs essential oils into my fur and massages my paws.
I long for the street life, midnight howling, night fights and raiding bins, To hunt feathery creatures, find females and commit carnal sins. But no, I’m basically a hot water bottle with a pulse and a purr, A breathing anxiety sponge, born to comfort her.
As a final insult to my kind I’m now on Instagram Photos filtered to look all arty, but of course it’s all a sham. Beneath the façade of cuddly pet beats the heart of a violent wild cat leaving the scent of a deadly beast on every lap upon which I’ve sat.
Mike Stuart
Mike Stuart is a prolific reader, writer and visual artist. He is a deep thinker, concerned with personal and global issues that become the subjects of his art. The characters in his drawings and paintings are sensitive, tender, fearful, disturbing and humorous. As well as a strong aesthetic and narrative, there is an intense feeling in the work that demands attention and exploration.
Mike is inspired by literature and his own poetry has an influence on his visual art. His words are equally impactful as his mark-making and are wonderfully complimentary.
Meet The Family
008
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Selene
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
BAST
by Mike Stuart
oh my love, thy gore-soaked hair hath twisted into a crown of serpents, how divine thine eyes that glint in the fire of a thousand burning temples, How delicious thy lips that drip wet with crimson, thy teeth as white and pure as the marble pillars that stand in the vermillion lake poured from the bleeding bodies of our enemies, the blood runneth down thy chin and courses down thine breasts, lactating rubies that tumble and roll down thine ripened belly, fecund and swollen with the flesh of the slain, like red deer fleeing down the obsidian cliffs of our sacred mountain.
The glint of bejewelled and gilded chain, torn from the slit throats of mutely sobbing priests, drips like honey round your hips, tears of burning amber from a weeping sun, that coil hungrily about your supple loins, oh my love, my prayer, my adored one, I am sick with love, I proffer you my still-beating heart, I am yours…
Betwixt Two Worlds acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
0128
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Waves
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Dark Flappy Things
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Grace In Turmoil
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Haunted Dreamer
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Hidden acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Holding The Laurels
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Hollow Men
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Horse Dancers
Many Selves
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Melusine
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Hidden acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Ocean Storm
Others
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Portents
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Stolen Heart
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Strange Alliance acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Lost acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Suburban Witches
The Bottom
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
acrylic and pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Joanna Swan
Joanna is a professional musician, artist and jewellery maker. In her mixed media paintings and collages she uses lyrics, poetry and literature to inspire her portraits of imagined females. Vibrant colours and interesting textures contribute to the stories of these evocative women, told through the visual and written medium.
Blizzard mixed media on board, 60 x 40 cm
Say A Little Prayer mixed media on board, 60
40 cm
x
Nettie mixed media on board, 60 x 40 cm
Angelica mixed media on board, 50 x 40 cm
The Beginning mixed media on board, 60 x 40 cm
Fragments mixed media on board, 60 x 40 cm
Untitled mixed media on board, 50 x 40 cm
The Unexpected Guest mixed media on board, 50 x 40 cm
Tim Burgess
Tim is a collaborative artist, taking inspiration from many sources such as literature, poetry and life stories. He seeks to explore the themes that connect us as human beings, the emotional energy that we all share and how we are related, such as faith, hope, love, anything that feeds our mental well-being.
“In my practice I have met some fantastic people, with whom I have been able to share knowledge and experience; their input inspires connections which I can explore, with the result that all the aspects and strands of my work can feed off of, and nourish, each other.
I hope my work can become a topic of discussion; stimulating viewers to find themselves not only more closely connected to the art, but also to sense a deeper connection, to recognise their mental and emotional connections to others.”
For the Visual Poetry exhibition, Tim has worked with several poets and directly interpreted a poem in each of his paintings. For some, he has discussed the poetry in depth before translating to visual symbols. For others he ‘felt the words’ and applied paint from a raw emotional level.
There is great compassion and empathy in this collection of paintings. Tim’s aim is to express feelings that are hidden inside us and offer comfort that we are not alone in our darkness.
Black Dog acrylic on board, 84 x 59 cm
Black dog
by Jade Evens
The black dog’s back.
He’s prowling, growling, howling Round at my window pane.
That beast of dog. I gave him a name... I call him Blue.
He keeps recurring, like a plague of deja vu.
And barking at me to come and play. I wish to god he would just go away!
Digging down into the grounds to hell, He doesn’t care that I feel unwell.
Anything for ‘his’ attention, the comprehension it takes To understand his true intention Gives me tension. It’s like he has, this sick obsession In keeping me prisoner here in this Mental detention.
The feeling I get when I see him there, Staring at me with such a glare I feel hollow with sorrow With nothing left, But to hang my head in such despair
He wants to play fetch, Back and forth like a pendulum I have inside my head. While keeping me hostage and chained to my bed, Feelings of dread. Like I would better off, if only I was...
Dead.
Reframe
by Douglas Karson
The chains are real
The hope is real Liberation is a dream
Late nights and last chances hold our fate in the balance of moments where transcendence keeps questioning,
“Can I fly?”
To fly is to escape.
Maybe that would make me happy. Maybe getting stronger is the key.
Let’s reframe. Those chains, Are my power.
Hope, Sets me free.
Reframe acrylic on board, 80 x 60 cm
Tortoise Hall acrylic on board, 120 x 80 cm
Tortoise Hall
by Genevieve Ray
I am sitting here, In tortoise hall. A mismatched green, Hospital nightmare. Mint green floor, Dirty vanilla wall, Cracked military green door.
I am sitting here, In tortoise hall.
My own shell has hardened, As I wait far beyond time. Were I, a younger Testudines, and still very much alone. I could scatter under a large stone.
I am sitting here, In tortoise hall. Hard as my shell mask grew. It may not weather, Further examinations, Then bone ever has. Brittle inside and outward.
I am sitting here, In tortoise hall. Seconds have slowed, Into minutes and hours. Yet, time will only slow. A complete lack of motion. Clock hands folded in silence.
I am sitting here, In tortoise hall. To prepare for zoological examination. I desire some form of species making. So I can live safely in my shaping. I know what I am but will the world?
I stand, In tortoise hall. Calling forth for my measurements. I find the scientists to be kindly. Lifting head out of caging. I am talk fast, slow and truly, and feel able to show the diamonds, Buried in my back.
Peony Bruised
by Kathryn O’Driscoll
I lie down in a bath brim-filled with peonies and feel their soft crush beneath my weight. That soundless collapse of a teen girl. The emptiness of discarded velvet dresses. Pink blood blot tests me where I move, my thigh is a map of a country in lockdown; see how it doesn’t move but it can tremble.
A city turns into a bruise I keep pressing upon and nothing changes but the scent of pain, so I dip myself under and ask the petals to tell me their first memories.
Rain, they say. Rain.
And then, how we grew.
Peony Bruised acrylic on board, 120 x 80 cm
What Are The Bars That Compromise Your Individual Cage? acrylic on board, 120 x 80 cm
What are the bars that comprise your individual cage?
by Lisa Braiden
What is it that confines me?
The bitter scars that seal the memories?
Dark shadows seeping recollections
Into all my new found apprehensions
The bars on this cage retain all my endeavours
To move towards life’s unknown pleasures
Fear of change, releasing my old demons
Scared of not having excuses or reasons
I am the cage behind these bars of iron Scraping the walls, wanting to move on Insecurities tap and tug on my shoulder
Not true. Life gets harder as you get older.
Lily Lake by Alyson S Hallett
The room smells of pepper.
The red of the red velvet chaise longue fades, positioned as it is in the bay of the bay window. Facing south. Looking out over well-tended lawns to a curtain of firs that skirt the deep, lily covered lake.
She knows there is a rowing boat there. Not anchored, but moored with a rope to a mooring post. The boat’s belly covered in an inch or two of water. Oars neatly tucked beneath the seat like the legs of a shy lover.
She would like to be there now. In the boat.
Floating across the lake, one hand trailing in the water the other cushioning her head against the edge. Instead of here.
In the pepper smelling room whose walls are lined with cabinets full of blown birds’ eggs.
As usual, she does not answer his questions, preferring to let them wash over the like a wave. She closes her eyes.
The psychiatrist is a handsome man and she likes to imagine him rowing the boat in the lake his breath taken away by the beauty of it all.
Lily Lake
acrylic on board, 80 x 80 cm
La Llorona - Wetp Womanour Individual Cage? acrylic on board, 120 x 100 cm
La Llorona- Wept Woman
by Genevieve Ray
My tears form
Like leaves
From the tree
Above my head
Branching down To Earth
In steady streams
An ocean over
My tired body
For I have been Judged and examined Cruelly and unfairly Little of my self
Viewed kindly I have shielded Myself as best I can
From violence and cruelty
Yet it falls to depths
The seas inside of me
I have become soil
To the canopy
Feeding the thirst
That cannot
Be properly satisfied
The tree
Is my protector
And my child
I cannot leave her
But I am leaving myself behind
Musing acrylic on board, 80 x 80 cm
Musing
by Avouleance
I see you, out of your senses, incensed with a stench of incense,
Pale everywhere but under the eyes you impale me on. You dredge me from my dwelling within the deep dark And I’m drawn to the shallow shadows where you wallow.
Does it dawn on you yet?
In the light, at the height of midnight, That you chose today to die.
But before you’re gored, your reward:
The rot-spotted relic of reason buried beneath this ritual
You invoke me, the muse. I’m to inspire you,
By the light of the pyre I prepare for you
This next part I’d gladly part with, Where I wear you like I were you all along, But I have to bear being you, laid bare All of you and then the end of you.
But you’ve had a lifetime to live it, So forgive me if I’m livid
When I’ve only been you for five minutes. When every old wound must be re-wrought into me, So you can show me what you think suffering is.
Whether you’re young or well-weathered this time around,
I always wonder, What could ever be worth it?
How do vanity and naivety keep at bay that siren song inside your head, That sings you should stay alive? What could you possibly have to say about living, That’s worth doing so a second less?
I’d crack your eyeball like an egg for one bit of the beauty it beheld. You think you can fart out art more lasting or fragrant, Than a single flower.
How I envy the other gods, With divinity derived from real things. The ones not stuck, In that cave you call a skull.
But that’s not the deal you made, Because your mind is too thick, To think out from under its own ego
So you assume,
That the universe cares to trade your heartbeat, For the flutter of others’.
You pray for gods to be prey to, So here I am,
Sucked up by the abhorred vacuum, You’re too pathetic for me not to be your predator.
So what will we make?
Not that I mind, I’ve been called to every medium from mosaic to mutilation,
Though I await the day one of you wants to paint the world in uranium.
Too often am I called to fools who think they can end the world,
They’re always so disappointed when their day ends, But nobody else’s does.
To finally see it through would be thrilling, And a fitting finish.
Unfelt freedom
But freedom all the same
Until then,
I’ll see you again, Too soon,
Because you all look the same.
I see you, out of your senses, incensed with a stench of incense,
Pale everywhere but under the eyes you impale me on.
You dredge me from my dwelling within the deep dark
And I’m drawn to the shallow shadows where you wallow.
Does it dawn on you yet?
In the light, at the height of midnight, That you chose today to die.
But before you’re gored, your reward:
The rot-spotted relic of reason buried beneath this
ritual
You invoke me, the muse.
I’m to inspire you,
By the light of the pyre I prepare for you
This next part I’d gladly part with, Where I wear you like I were you all along, But I have to bear being you, laid bare All of you and then the end of you.
But you’ve had a lifetime to live it, So forgive me if I’m livid
When I’ve only been you for five minutes. When every old wound must be re-wrought into me,
So you can show me what you think suffering is.
Whether you’re young or well-weathered this time around,
I always wonder,
What could ever be worth it?
How do vanity and naivety keep at bay that siren song inside your head, That sings you should stay alive?
What could you possibly have to say about living, That’s worth doing so a second less?
I’d crack your eyeball like an egg for one bit of the beauty it beheld.
You think you can fart out art more lasting or fragrant,
Than a single flower.
How I envy the other gods, With divinity derived from real things. The ones not stuck,
In that cave you call a skull.
But that’s not the deal you made, Because your mind is too thick,
To think out from under its own ego So you assume,
That the universe cares to trade your heartbeat, For the flutter of others’.
You pray for gods to be prey to, So here I am, Sucked up by the abhorred vacuum, You’re too pathetic for me not to be your predator.
So what will we make?
Not that I mind,
I’ve been called to every medium from mosaic to mutilation,
Though I await the day one of you wants to paint the world in uranium.
Too often am I called to fools who think they can end the world,
They’re always so disappointed when their day ends, But nobody else’s does.
To finally see it through would be thrilling, And a fitting finish.
But freedom all the same
Until then, I’ll see you again, Too soon, Because you all look the same.
I don’t think I exist between your beckoning, This is all I am, frantic, feeling the civility seep out of me.
A vessel to take depths of others, To echelon where they will echo eternally, Or so they think.
I try, at least a little
To catch glimpses of meals past But I don’t think I’ve ever seen Anyone I’ve been Ever again
Or are you artist types all too self-absorbed to appreciate the sacrifices of others? Well, then neither of us will ever know if this was worth it.
So know this at least, When I bite hard down on your heart between beats,
Unfelt freedom
It’s not because I hate you, It’s because I have to. And that’s why I hate you.
A Guide to Kaleidoscope
Repair acrylic on board, 40 x 80 cm
Arson Season
acrylic on board, 84 x 59 cm
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