Excursions and Adventures
Friday 13th
– the only date to open an exhibition of new Tasmanian Gothic paintings.
I'm pleased to say the evening went very well; lots of friendly people and some
nice red dots.
Many thanks to Comrad
Xero, musician, songwriter and all-round talented person, in this
instance an apparently disembodied voice emanating from beneath a
dark veil, who spoke at the opening.
Several
people have asked for a transcript and the author has kindly sent me
a copy. Here it is.
WHEN I THINK OF GOTHIC
When
I think of Gothic, I think of those structures put up by late Middle
Age builders - stone by stone. They enclosed a space yet to become
sacred - reaching for a better Eternity. Here are dark and
mysterious recesses. Here are Crypts. Here, the underworld of these
spaces hold their own significance. These spaces are transformative
- all sort of creatures live here.
When
I think of Gothic, I think of Percy B. Shelly and his crowd, sitting
around a fire telling horrifying tales of ‘different
possibilities’ - of resurrections. Hearts beating in anticipation
of the coming next word - how will it drop? Conjuring visions that
could lift you or slam you down.
I
think of Percy Shelley facing off with the gale force winds of
Italian beaches….
“Oh,
wild west wind,
thou
breath of autumns’ being,
thou
from whose unseen presence
the
leaves, dead are driven,
like
ghosts from an enchanter fleeing”
(Ode
to the West Wind)
When
I think of Gothic I think of Germany, of Caspar David Friedrich
standing on that precipice, looking down into a sea of mist, fog and
cloud - alone - high in the mountains - a solitary figure.
I
think of early film noir - the silent film - The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari where duality between the bright and dark sides of our
nature is played. Where the sets and the lighting exaggerated the
‘chiaroscuro’ technique of the Mannerist period of art … adding
‘the unseen’ as an element.
I
think of The Tale of Ruby Rose a film based on a Tasmanian
story told by an old woman - Mrs. Miles of Mole Creek Valley. It is
a tragic dark tale of a young woman living alone in a hut in the
Highlands, waiting for her husband to come back - but he has died.
She waited alone for four years. Four long years, alone, in this
wilderness. The character Ruby, begins to create her own world, it
comes out of her interaction with the landscape and its flora and
fauna. She fears the night - ‘darkness is following me.’ She
layers flour on her face to resist it.
All
these artists, these builders, these film-makers, these writers
create spaces for us to inhabit. Spaces where we find shelter from
the mundanity of Consume - Work - Die.
When
I think of Gothic, I think of musicians who take us there in an
instant. The organist of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one Ash
Wednesday evening - who played the dirgiest music that filled that
great stone enclosure with swirling sound leaving me in anticipation
as if on a ledge - a precipice.
I
think of music of bands like ‘Dead can Dance’ - ‘SPK’ - ‘The
Sisters of Mercy' . . .
Hey,
now, hey now now now….sing this corrosion to me . . .
When
I think of Gothic, I am slammed in the face with the spookiness that
inhabits the Tasmanian Landscape. You may take a trip up Kunyani on
a beautiful day, breathe in the cold sweet fresh air, stand there
like Caspar David Friedrich - and take in the vista of human
existence below. You may see Sisyphus coming up towards the summit,
you may certainly feel that you have reached the realm of the Gods -
but then, decide to go for a stroll from Thark Ridge to Devils Throne
and never be seen again!
That
dark blue of spaces, that jagged rock landscape, the hostility of a
burnt out pine forest, where nothing grows there again naturally.
The
isolation of the lonely places that shaped peoples' lives in the
past and still continues to shape ours. Here, ironically, on this
heart shaped Island a dark, eerie, cold and bracing history, climate
and landscape, has infused our imaginations - and we do embrace that
darkness, we know the clouds, the mists that hang heavy in the
valleys, we know the colours of winter that pervade the recesses of
the voids as we drive past them - we know spooky.
Elizabeth
Barsham comes from this place,
this
landscape,
this
history,
this
knowing.
Observing
the details of this inheritance, Elizabeth creates unique works that
interrogate the haunting and unusual aspects of this Landscape on
this Island.
When
I look at Elizabeth’s paintings, I feel like I have just woken up
in a beautifully strange and a totally new world, where every detail,
every object - needs to be investigated and rediscovered and where
surprises flourish in abundance. Welcome to Tasmanian Gothic.
Written
and delivered by Comrad Xero at the opening of
Excursions
and Adventures”
an
exhibition of paintings
by
Elizabeth Barsham
Friday
13 January , 2017.
(World
Goth Day) Exhibition ends 22 Jan.
