‘The Chasm’, March 2014. After some time and several life changes plus the advent of spring, art and nature have begun to flow again! This image which emerged to my surprise of its own accord represents nothingness, between and behind everything. It cannot be thought about, imagined, destroyed or created…. It is the only possibility without an opposite and which makes everything possible…
‘Travelling Through Pratalaxaz’ January 2014. After discovering Pratalaxaz in my previous image I am continuing to visually explore this new world. This new image reflects passing through the entrance and travelling deep within. Coincidently I recently came across the wonderful work of philosopher Karl Popper. One of his main theses is of the 3 worlds; Physical universe, subjective experiences & states, human knowledge & artifacts. Pratalaxaz belongs to Poppers World 3. His essay ‘Knowledge without authority’ 1960 is one of the most illuminating gems I have come across. I recommend reading it.
This image ‘Entrance to Pratalaxaz’, December 2013, is an introduction and opening into the quasi-mystical, fantastical world of Pratalaxaz. The real, imaginary domain that lies always outside the already-known, so you won’t find any knowledge of this exotic world on google. Think lapis lazuli, the immediacy of epiphanies half understood, Kubla Khan, scientifically studied with common sense and you will be on the right track to the entrance…
‘Image in the Mind of a European’ created November 2013. In the words of T.S. Eliot: “What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art that preceded it.” Eliot refers to this organic tradition, this developing canon, as the “mind of Europe.” The private mind is subsumed by this more massive one. …He compares the poet to a catalyst in a chemical reaction, in which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are synthesised to create an artistic image that captures and relays these same feelings and emotions.
‘What the Eye Sees’, from November 2011.
I recently went to the brilliant Paul Klee exhibition at the Tate Modern. This is a must see exhibition.
“Art does not reproduce, rather, it makes visible” Klee – 1921
‘Kandinskys Epiphany’ from December 2011. “Our intuitive subject culminates our individual experiences to become a concrete object. When we are satisfied that the object’s creation is complete, we look at what we once only felt. This is part of the reward of art. It is part of why we are artists. We want to see what we feel. As we give voice to the only faintly heard, we transmit energy to others, to fuel new and novel creativity, to push, support, and evoke Spirit, and to flush the world with its own alchemical life-essence.” Matthew Dallman
‘A Dream of Sudden Change’ September 2013, is a response to the belief that we are primarily rational beings, insisting on a solid self sense that is somehow removed and observing. Simple reflection on the nature of experience reveals a constant movement of sudden shifts and flows, within and without, that does not reveal any certainty of a solid self.
A personal artistic summary and record of my childhood in Derry; the local terrain, the church, the weather, sun & rain, the peace process, the troubles, black & white newspaper photos, the view across Lough Foyle to Donegal, the sea, waves on the beach in summer, the little river, the army, farm buildings, the soul as pictured by a child… a kaleidoscope of physical and metaphysical spaces… what I am made of…
The artists window is an iconic metaphor; a window on the world, where light and life stream in and simultaneously a window to the soul and mind, reflecting and refracting the experience and vision of being alive.
Surrealism was a bold attempt to bridge the divide between the conscious and unconscious, a movement of its time, trying to counter the great dualism created and inseparable from modernism. Here I wryly attempt the impossible, to explore and visualise the inner mind of such a person, as if by scientific scrutiny.
Patrick Bryson 