PAINTING, MUSIC, POETRY AND DRONES

Sky - Drone - Net Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm [unframed] 2016

MUSIC and DRONES
I had a lovely surprise recently. Out of the blue, author and songwriter, Mary Amato, contacted me. Mary creates music inspired by STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Her music puts an A into STEM = STEAM!

Anyway, she had composed music and lyrics for a piece that deals with drones. The piece is called Drone's Love Song 

And, my painting Sky - Drone - Net is now Drone's Love Song's image!

You can listen to Drone's Love Song HERE or below.

Keep an ear out for words like - bombing, spying, dirty work, remote and more. The lilting sounds of instruments and Mary's voice seem to initially belie the darkness contained in the music and lyrics. This, I think, connects with the aesthetic appeal of my work, which also seems to initially belie darkness. But, these initial reactions to listening and seeing are shattered as contemplation draws the listener and the viewer in. This shattering opens up an array of other reactions and thoughts - deepening the experience - provoking questions.






POETRY and DRONES
I was recently given a book of poems by an Australian poet called A. Frances Johnson. The anthology is called Rendition for Harp & Kalashnikov Johnson addresses a range of issues, including contemporary war.

If you love poetry - if you are interested in how the arts can critique contemporary war and accelerating militarised technologies - if you are particularly concerned about issues associated with weaponisable drones - Rendition for Harp & Kalshnikov is a must!

There are a number of poems that directly refer to drones and the various issues associated with surveillance and the remote deliverance of death. The poems are beautiful and sad, empathetic and cutting.

One poem called, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Versus Poem, positions poetry not necessarily as a winner of a competition, but as something that enables much more that a UAV - therefore - there is no competition. My prosaic words do not do justice to the incisive brilliance of this poem, but what I am trying to say is that this poem tells us something about the power of poetry. In doing so it tells us something about the power of art.

You will have to buy the anthology!

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FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION

And, please visit OCCUPIED LANDSCAPES: EVIDENCE OF DRONES to keep up to date with all the details for my forthcoming exhibition Occupied Landscapes: Evidence of Drones!

The New Clouds Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

Cheers,

Kathryn

THROUGH THE MISTS OF TIME

Through the Mists of Time Gouache and watercolour on paper 56 x 75.5 cm 2017

As regular readers know, my recent paintings have been influenced by my M. Phil research into contemporary militarised technology. Recent work has featured the figure of the unmanned air vehicle, commonly called the drone, often in juxtaposition with my interpretation of the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol. 

However...

This new painting Through the Mists of Time does not feature a drone. Rather, it focuses on humanity - unplugged from all cyber and digital technologies.

A result of my research focusing on contemporary militarised technology, is a counter balancing re-focus on questions associated with what it means to be human in the 21st century. That's why the tree-of-life figures so strongly in my work, with or without drones! The tree, as an age-old transcultural/religious symbol 'speaks' of all life and its systems. 

In Through the Mists of Time I wanted to place humanity, as represented by the male and female figures, in a cosmic seemingly timeless landscape. The figures seem to 'cast' a tree-of-life shadow, or new root system, at the same time as they project a tree-of-life into the sky - the endless future. A 'stream' of leaves gives the impression of time passing, the white oval shape alludes to renewal and birth, while the small round tree hovers like a fire fly, ready to illuminate, play, guide, tease. Small dots make up various parts of the painting - are they stars, new universes, energy particles, past and future histories? 

I am interested in investigating human agency in an age where unseen algorithms influence so much of our lives. I suggest that in an age of increasing automation, and developments in robotics and artificial intelligence, questions about human agency are important.

POEM

I was a fare way into completing this painting - and it did take some time - when I decided to re-read some of my Mother's and Grandmother's poems in their joint anthology Out There (1986). Well, one of my Mother's poems 'sang' to my new painting. In fact, I took its title from a line of my Mother's poem. The poem is:

Grafting Time

by Elsie Brimblecombe 

Published in Out There by D. E Ross [my grandmother] and Elsie Brimblecombe, Elise Publishing, Dalby, 1986.

If I squeeze the golden fruits

Of time, and suck the juice

Till from the leathered skins

The pith and core and rind

   fall free

The seed beyond the centre

Of that fruit will score

Their mark and drop

Beyond the pearly orchard gates

   and grow

There is this land crossed by days

And falling within the season's drop

Those fruits will bear

Upon the hour, the stop

And go of earth's frantic measure

But if I could graft the trees

Of time and from that union

Spring a growing season

Rooted in the current flow

I would grow and tree of life

   beyond record

A tree whose branches spread

Beyond our lives and those gone by

A tree which blossomed

Through the mists of time

And set its fruits to ripen

In the thinking of the wise.

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Please check out recent and older posts for more on my work figuring the drone, the tree-of-life and cosmic landscapes.

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

AWE

I heard myself ask in a discussion about religion, faith and belief;

Isn't Awe enough?

But, the word enough is in itself limiting.

What about...

Awe Is

The capital A and the capital I play beyond the realms of enough and any other descriptive word.

Like

I Am is different to I am...the latter seemingly begs for a descriptor and thus is immediately corralled. But, I Am goes beyond any description. It just IS.

During my last exhibition Untethering Landscape I had a few discussions about awe. Yes, it's a word that can be used to describe reactions to science, nature, religion and art too. Very gratifyingly, for me, a few people said my paintings created a sense of awe in them. Wow! That's a compliment indeed. But, as you will discover below, the paintings did not create awe, they just stirred Universal memories of it!

I recently read a very interesting article Awe, With Or Without The Gods by Dr. Tania Lombrozo. Dr. Lombrozo discusses the very human desire to work out how awe is elicited. She examines the assumption that atheists cannot possibly experience awe, as if religious belief is the domain of this vast word. Atheists do, in fact, experience awe, but there are others who find it difficult to understand that awe is not the handmaiden of religion. Dr. Lombrozo goes onto to discuss awe with regards to science, nature. She asks, So why the persistent idea that awe is inextricably linked to theism? And are "scientific awe" and "religious awe" fundamentally different, or deep down one and the same? Please read her very interesting article to see how her discussion proceeds.

At this point I am departing from a causative investigation. I think an examination of the sense of awe, rather than what seemingly causes it, is important

I propose that Awe IS because its trajectory rises from the birth of the Universe, and is thus inherent in everything. I propose that, like beauty, awe has no antonym and thus cannot be discussed referentially or comparatively. It just IS. Regular readers will know that I have previously written about beauty and the intriguing absence of an accompanying opposite. In my 2012 post Beauty Has No Antonym I wrote, Was beauty present at the instant life began, at the Big Bang or whatever it was that set everything in motion? I suspect it was. And, this Beauty now exists as some kind of human race memory, maybe deeply buried in our DNA code. Maybe that's why we sometimes have Ah Ha moments, that stir our inner core reminding us of something, often propelling us onto new thoughts and actions, but always providing us with joy and hope.

I suspect that Awe is a kind of remembering too...remembering at a core level that is linked to the energy forces of the Universe, revelling in a ubiquitous presence across all time and scale. When you feel awe you immediately know it...like an instinct which is not forgotten, that arises from before your human birth.

Yet, awe can be touched with fear. Like beauty's pathos there is a wild card lying in satisfied retreat. Why do I say satisfied retreat? Because, awe acknowledges fear and sets it free. After all, if awe was present at the birth of the Universe, it has known and overcome fear in all its guises. Awe rejoices in its own survival as it dances with the Universe. We see the dance in nature, art, the stars, science and yes in aspects of religion too. Rather than causing awe they trigger a sense that we already know, they stir Universal 'memory' within us, a memory that extends across time and space.

So, what about the photo above?

I am preparing a stretched linen 'canvas' for a new painting...which I has thought I'd call Awe

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PAINTED PROSE

 

AND, now to something a bit different...maybe?

I am one of 14 artists who have been invited by a young poet, Aquilokami, to create a work that is inspired by one of three poems. The poem I chose is In Abysm Inhere...

You can read more of Aquilokami's work at PASENFRANCAIS

The exhibition PAINTED PROSE is a one night event at Substation 4, 22 Petrie Tce, Brisbane.

I am probably the oldest artist...by ten thousand centuries!!! And, I am thrilled to have been asked! This is my painting below. I will post my artist's statement nearer the time...but meanwhile you read In Abysm Inhere...

and

see what you come up with.

An Eternal Dance Gouache on paper 32 x 114 cm 2014

Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

TOTALLY OUT THERE

My mother Elsie Brimblecombe and my grandmother [my two brothers and I called her Grand-ma-ma] Enid Ross, self-published a book of poems called “Out There” in 1986. My grandmother who was 87 at the time had had her first poems published, in newspapers and magazines, during her teens when she lived in Perth, Western Australia. My mother is a talented writer of both poetry, prose and history. Both are/were too humble to push for due attention.

‘Out There’ is Heaven: ‘life’ before and after mortal existence. Totally Out There [above] is a painting that 'speaks' of life's journey.

In her poem, my grandmother mentions ‘original laws…that devised creation.’ To me these are those fundamental and noticeable [but taken for granted] rhythms of life which everyone shares eg: heart beat, breath, seasons, tides, cycles of life.

Totally Out There Oil on linen 160 x 120 cm will be exhibited in my solo exhibition Pulse: Throb Vibrate Quiver Thrill Rhythm = Sign of Life opening tonight [Friday Oct 13] at Doggett Street Studio Gallery, 6-9 pm, 85 Doggett St, Newstead, Brisbane www.doggett.com
This is my grandmother’s poem:

Out There
By D.E Ross
1.
I do not cringe before the opening door
to Outside,
but brace muscle and mind
to meet
the open horizon
its fresher winds
the brighter light
undreamed of in the chrysalis:
each cloud a carriage
each breeze a wing
each star a stepping stone
beyond Time
-before and after-
toward the secret
of its source
and mine.

11.
There are no boundaries
Out There
but the original laws
that devised
creation.
neither north nor south
or east and west,
above
below
or here and there
No tides,
but streams of power forever flowing.
Time is not negotiated
wasted or lost:
an hour rates high in our accounting here:
yet a thousand years
could be held as a breath on the wind
Out There.

111.
There is no waste in God’s economy.
New solar systems
gather grace in space
[along with waste
from our allotted span of influence].
In God’s eternal meld
of warp and woof,
of foul and fair,
we have each one of us a share
in a new heaven and a new earth
aiming for birth
Out There
somewhere.