Ode on Melancholy

This was a little project of experimentation: combining my recent working with felt and embroidery and soft sculptures alongside paper cut-outs, as well as the developing visual interplay and exchange in my practice between the making of shadows through the work and the depiction of shadows in the work.  Foremost these works mark a return to painting.  It has been a long time since I have picked up a brush to work with.  It was both experiment and reflection.  A quiet time for me to ponder and indulge in my thoughts, and space.  These studies were made in that grape blue fuzzy contemplation that comes after long nights of mental wanders, of melancholy - the bitter-sweetness of self-doubt and those searches for surviving the everyday.  After I made the works, and was looking to name these little objects, I Google-stumbled upon Keats’ Ode on Melancholy.  I broke up the lines of the first stanza, which with that beautiful stroke of synchronicity fell easily into ten sections alike the ten works; each line appearing to speak to each image.

ruby grape of proserpine

35.5 x 28cm

cartridge paper, foil paper, watercolour
Photograph: John Brash

nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries

dimensions variable

cartridge paper, watercolour, Liberty print fabric, cotton thread
Photograph: John Brash

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist By nightshade

58.5 x 21 cm

cartridge paper, foil paper, watercolour
Photograph: John Brash

nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche

33 x 27cm

cartridge paper, foil paper, watercolour
Photograph: John Brash

Nor let the bettle

Dimensions variable

cartridge paper, watercolour, felt, cotton tread, glass beads, sequins

Photograph: John Brash

No, no! Go not to Lethe

36.5 x 30 cm

cartridge paper, water colour, baking paper, nylon organza, cotton thread, glass beads
Photograph: John Brash

neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine

67 x 21 cm

cartridge paper, water colour, felt, cotton thread, glass beads, sequins
Photograph: John Brash

Make not your rosary of yew-berries

32 x 44 cm

cartridge paper, water colour
Photograph: John Brash

For shade to shade will come too drowsily

45 x 34cm

cartridge paper, water colour, calico, string, cotton thread, mother-of-pearl
Photograph: John Brash

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul

30 x 40cm

cartridge paper, foil paper, water colour
Photograph: John Brash