Dream Letter

For me, the muse comes in many forms whether it be nature, music, intriguing people and interactions. I am forever enchanted by the Muse and all the realms they open up for me. A good Muse opens the floodgates of words and images where dreams, landscapes, narrative and poetry flow like a river.

Text is an artform in and of itself. Decoding, flipping and dissecting words and meanings has long fascinated me. The simplicity of some of these works speak to my love of books and a nostalgia for something I can’t quite put to words. I often think of my works as chapters in a book – not made in chronological order but revisiting different parts of a narrative without a clear beginning or end, yet each page, each work is interconnected through an intricate web of dreamscapes.

The title, Dream Letter, was inspired by the album and song by Tim Buckley with the same name. The song itself is not the inspiration, but the notion of writing a song, a painting or a letter to someone who may never receive it was the fixation of these works. For Tim, it was writing to his son Jeff Buckley, who he tragically never really made an effort to be a father to. Both their lives have always fascinated me – Tim, a bad father with an amazing vocal range, Jeff his son with equally amazing vocal skills – both not wanting anything to do with the other and yet their lives mirrored each other’s in a deeply compelling way. Both had so much talent and yet crumbled under the weight of it all. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to meet either of them. I wonder about the music they might have made if their fate had been to live on. Some of these imagined conversations play a part in my new works.

As a teenager I would write letters to an unknown person or thing. Within these letters I would muse on the meaning of life and I would recall fascinating observations in nature. I would speak of a love for beauty, for complexity of thought and existential debate. Within each letter contained my love for words themselves – the origin and formation of words were just as curious to me as how language could be structured to make a story, a poem or even a painting. Some of these letters would morph into an idiosyncratic code, indecipherable and yet, made complete sense to me. I would see the world through this lens of enchantment and it is something that I still do to this day.

If the nightingale could speak, what would it say?

If a stone could sing, what would it sound like?

If a stone could dream, of what would it’s mind be filled?