In June I started to offer courses for The Fintry Trust, see the flyers below. The offer (a friend had recommended me) came unexpectedly and as a kind of gift. I had just cancelled a show in London due to Covid-19.
Working online on zoom seems one of those strange and positive outcomes of a general crisis; discovering that it is possible to engage with people, see their uncovered faces, saving long journeys to attend meetings.
These courses provide a great opportunity for me to expand my practice stronger again into research, balancing painting/drawing and text research/writing, a way of working both sides of the brain that perfectly suits my needs/wants, which I could especially thrive on during my PhD research. However, working for, organising and preparing exhibitions in the last years interrupted proper continuity in this way.
Currently, or better still (after all these years) I am fascinated by alchemical medieval manuscripts and illuminations. And the preparations for the Fintry courses turned out to push me again and inevitably into intense engagement with alchemical ideas, symbols, frameworks; in particular with regards to Splendor Solis (again, this time more in detail) and Aurora Consurgens, which has a unique slant on the Feminine. Working with Aurora will continue into a larger project over the next year.
I have profited immensely from this research, and sharing the results with those people who have booked my courses out of curiosity or pure interest in alchemy and its philosophical and ‘spiritual’ potential, has been/is a deeply rewarding experience for me.
Future courses will be around Cy Twombly’s works relating to Rainer Maria Rilke, then around Nicholas Poussin’s late mythological landscapes (in the first half of 2021); those who know me a bit, will recognise the names and subjects from long standing interest.
