To Read of Dreams
“To Read of Dreams.”
Oil on unprimed paper. 9 x 12 in.
2023
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I’ve always had a fascination with the derelict. Maybe it’s the fascination I’ve had with certain romantic painters and their obsession with ruins. Maybe it comes from the fear that everything feels on the brink of collapse.
There’s a beauty to the derelict, not the noun that’s constantly hijacked to justify any kind of work of art or another, but something bigger, something sublime. Perhaps it’s the passage of time and our unfortunate preconceived notions about what that is. Maybe it’s just as simple as a need to experience something more primal & real than the daily anomalies we’re constantly subjected to.
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Albeit simple, this was the painting that opened up a vast landscape to me, it seems that every painting that’s come after it has found its way out my mind and brush without much effort, flowing, cascading and free. Happy to exist and be.
To me it depicts that need to escape for a little from that potential collapse and to step into the world of dreams.
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The first iteration of the title was “As He Reads of Dragons and Dreams” since I was reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle at the time. Where Dragons are gods and speak in the language of the making. I needed a buffer from reality and the journey of Ged and Kalessin provided so much comfort.
But now I think about it and it’s more than just that, it’s a painting about the many stories and tales that have influenced me since I was a child.
From playing Pokémon & and watching my older brother beat Final Fantasy, to reading Dracula, Harry Potter & A Hundred Years of Solitude. Finding out about Tarkovsky & his infamous room where all wishes come true were a total revelation to me & watching how spirits and ghosts seek respite from pain and squalor in Miyazaki’s legendary onsen (read: bathhouse) was enough to guide me in what my kind of storytelling was supposed look like. Kurosawa’s Dreams are as vivid as ever and the fact that Satoshi Kon was born on the same day as I was will forever be a reminder of what my north stars said before me and what my path looks like moving forward.
The world of dreams and the bending of reality has always fascinated me as a way of storytelling. And I finally feel free to explore and wander.
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“To Read of Dreams” was truly the first artwork in which I let myself paint for my own sake, to take a big, long, breath of fresh air.
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January 12th, 2024 – 3:56PM.
