“This painting is part of a series of works in dialogue with the writings of Anne Carson, in particular her collection of prose pieces, Wrong Norma (2024). I wanted to...
“This painting is part of a series of works in dialogue with the writings of Anne Carson, in particular her collection of prose pieces, Wrong Norma (2024). I wanted to keep the painting in a state of flux as if the overlaid components could be reconfigured at any point, or the execution could keep happening. Like the mad structure of Carson’s book I was keen to hold all the contradictions in one place with macro/micro, tight/fast, bright/dark jostling for space in the painting. There was a need to get the paint to behave like a stream of consciousness from the mind to the hand, always conversational.
The title refers to Carson’s description of birds dancing on a roof as night falls after a storm “...even as dark comes on and fabled night is managing its manes and the birds, I can hear from their little racket, the birds are burning up and down like holy fools somewhere inside it - far in where they keep the victim, smeared, stinking, hence the pageantry, hence the pitchy cries, don’t keep saying you don’t hear it too.” - Mary Ramsden, 2024