Trace...wall scribblings...

  I realize I am repeating my self somewhat but 'Trace' which opens at the Tweed Regional gallery in March will be a re-configuring of my MVA show...for many of the pieces I will include diaristic reflections hand written in pencil on the gallery walls...these will be more structured than the simple descriptions I have used previously (perhaps it will be too much)...but the hope is that it forms an integral part of the experience of the works...    

'growing up in a catholic environment all books were sacred objects...although it was never purely a catholic sensibility for within the wider societal view books afforded a certain status of high respect... there was a sense that any act of vandalism in the form of underlining in either pen or pencil, the deliberate dog ear of pages or the most unforgivable act of all, the cutting out of pictures was an act of the greatest disrespect not only to the book form but to language itself....I feel a wonderful sense of childish release each time I hammer a nail through the pages of a book...my experience of books has always been one of immediate contemplation before opening a single page...the embedding of surfaces and attachment of objects seems to reinforce my particular sense of books...and perhaps in truth we have always judged a book by its cover'...sp