Stand-Alone Art
Aire Place Studios
Leeds, June 2022
Breakwater Art Gala
Oxford, January-February 2023
Text:
The floral season is dwindling.
It’s getting hazy round the edges,
clusters of flowers are just changing to a rust colour.
The dense oak is growing up;
I am falling down its creeping branches.
I’m coming back to the shining black centre again
-to the milky-eyed crow.
We’ve been growing closer.
Intertwined with its mass,
we are about to ascend
This piece is composed of many overlapping layers representing the ‘wine dark sea’ so often referenced by Homer. The text is composed in Ancient Greek and is written from the perspective of Penelope as she waits for her husband to finally return home. It reads:
Greek
ὑφαίνουσα γλυκείαν ἀοιδὴν σοι ᾄδω ἐπὶ τῳ ἱστῳ, ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ
ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ, ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ, ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ
διώξεις τὴν ἐμὴν φωνὴν οἴκαδε, ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ;
ὦ Ὀδυσσεῦ; ὦ Ὀδυσσεῦ;
ἔρχοιο ἂν, εἰ τῆς Σειρῆνος ἀοιδὴν ᾄδοιμι, ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ;
ὦ ᾿Οδυσσεῦ...
English
O Odysseus, I sing a sweet song for you, weaving on my loom.
O Odysseus, O Odysseus, O Odysseus.
Will you follow my voice home, Odysseus?
Odysseus? Odysseus?
Would you come if I sang a Siren's song?
Odysseus...
Many thanks to Marina for checking my translation and offering edits, as well as for insisting that accents be included…
(Being auctioned as signed prints).
Gallarie V
Cambridge, February-April 2022
Persephone
Harvard University, March 2020
Roots and their Branches
University College, Oxford University
Seven Voices
Oxford University, Trinity Term 2018
Preservation
The rainfall floods the thick tangle of undergrowth,
unraveling me embroiled in the murky wreck.
It was some unforgivable exasperation to survive,
all other hopes of secondary interest really;
maybe some embittered sentiment of glinting chance,
which need not linger here.
University College
University College, Oxford University
All Pieces
