Artistic Motivation - Self Portrait

The Dissertation Series continues its second cycle; the poet responds to WE THE MODERNS featuring Henri Gaudier-Brzeska at Graves Art Gallery - Sheffield, April 2007

Self Portrait

Reds, browns, yellows, oranges, greens
Cream, did you say cream
These were your colours were they Z-B?

Modigliani, Matisse, Alexander Archipenko
Auguste Rodin, Rodin did you say
And these were your eminent contemporaries Z-B?

I step sideways besides a Giacometti
Forwards, there a Pablo Picasso Tête de Femme
Sideways Giacometti, straight ahead Pablo Picasso

Slow down, stand back, take a breath
At the entrance, on the wall - a self portrait
The pastel chiselled features of a most attractive younger man

A short life, she the second part of your name
A woman almost twice your age, such life in a short life
Home thoughts from abroad, in your own self portrait

Context: Your contemporaries live forever
Pretext: The war came, you never…

Artistic Motivation - Craft

The Dissertation Series, second cycle, takes the poet to react to art and craft combined, at the Seeing Dragons Exhibition featuring Nora Fok at the Harley Gallery - Worksop, March 2007

Craft

Mind concentrations sat aloft the stand
Obsessions foraged from the land
A thousand seed reductions are given to the need
The Million Dollar Collar by-passes inner greed

Artistic Motivation - Misinformed

The Dissertation Series second cycle is in Spain at The Curve of Destiny Exhibition a poets response to artwork by by Jesûs Mari Lazkano, Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, March 2007

Misinformed

Why do we need to explain, why do we need to intellectualise? Why do we need to say more about the art, than does the art itself? Does then the explanation become the significant part? Does the explanation, well presented, become the main event?

On the big screen
In the side stream viewing booth
The power of the moving image
The force of multi-media
A darkened space, a mood
A voice with timbre & only
A chosen number to view

No book
No guide
No historical perspective
Outwith of the one performed
For the indiscriminately invited patrons

Understand it my way seems to be the message
Or do not begin to imagine that you understand it anyhow at all

Artistic Motivation - Shadow Machine

The Dissertation Series continues its second cycle of a poets instant responses to art at the Abstraction - Extracting from the World Exhibition, Millennium Gallery - Sheffield, February 2007

Shadow Machine

Tick tock - stop
Please everybody slow down
Let's begin with a whisper
Tip - top, slow-down, stop

A pin point balance, rocking to and fro
The metronome swings towards home
Its shade travels ever so slight behind
For now it is the afterglow

Artistic Motivation - Aged

The Dissertation series second cycle responds to the Sojourn Exhibition featuring Derek Sprawson at the Bend in the River Gallery - Gainsborough, February 2007

Aged

Emeritus, older than fortune, older than tomorrow
Before faith
Deity

Columbine, twisted contortion, further than forever
Beyond hope
Sight

Kingdom of creation, taste of red wine, blue blood
Always with or without
Divinity

Beauties, moods, bittersweet emotions
Exiled by the hostility, lately
Of doubt or light