Magic and the Occult

To find out some wider content to the work of Ithell Colquhoun, I'm reading a couple of books that explore the magic and the occult, both through history and with links to contemporary life. It's interesting to see mentions of ritualistic visits to ancient sites such as stone circles and what the anthropological and spiritual significance this has both in history and today. As I read more I can visualise the links with my own work. I'm getting a real sense that through history, 'the other' has provided an antidote, or alternative way of life to those who are disenchanted with present or external forces, be it political, social, psychological. This search for something 'beyond' or 'other' specifically in terms of magic isn't at the centre of what I'm looking at - but I can see clear links with the more psychological need for looking for diversion or connection with something that grounds and anchors one into a space that feels safe.

"And what is art if not a revealing of hidden truths?"

In Visions Of The Occult, Victoria Jenkins sets out to "explore some of the ways that the plethora of ideas, beliefs, theories and practices associated with occultism, myth, ritual and magic have been utilised and referenced by artists, presenting them with new ways of thinking about art and approaching art-making".

"To make hidden inner worlds visible"

Richard Long England 1968

Joseph Beuys Table with Accumulator 1958-85

Something that's been really interesting about reading this book is the variety of ways the ideas surrounding esotericism have been expressed by different artists. It's made me think there is scope for me to push towards a way to combine 2d with 3d work and my planned experiments with paper structures may be a gateway to this.

Some interesting info on the origins of 'Ley Lines'.

Despite possessing a steadfast focus on her own journey and artistic pursuits, it doesn't appear to me that Colquhoun was evangelical about where her beliefs came from. She embraced the theology and theosophy from numerous religions and Easters/Western practices, Celtic and Pagan beliefs systems etc. It was like she used a mixing pot of doctrines and found a common ground in them, expressing them through her art. I really admire this about her. She wasn't set on one path only, but was embracing of many.

In Second Adam she is depicting the mapping of energies within the human body. these channels and energy centres are familiar as the Chakras in Tantra and Hinduism. Colquhoun's perennial worldview combined this East Asian philosophical ideas with those of the Kabbalah, making links between the nodes of the body and the Tree of Life.

From:

Magic, edited by Jamie Sutcliffe, MIT Press, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=6811075.

Created from ual on 2023-07-27 10:48:07.

Time and the Transit Between Times

"And what if time were not sequential anyway? Or, at least, what if linear time – the unidirectional movement from a past to a present to a future – was itself a very particular mythopoesis (or, to say it differently, is implicated in certain narratives)? Birth, school, work, death; commodities, careers and their various promises; progress, from earlier to later, from primitive to more advanced; time passing, ultimately anchored in western syntax and grammar. Might we be living a certain mythopoesis that brings with it a certain experience of time? And, importantly, has the latter, now, finally, run its course? Indeed, from other perspectives there is a co-presence of past, present and future; different lines of causality running parallel and with different points of intersection (certainly this was William Burroughs’ understanding of the Mayan form of time).

Here there are lines and points that are, perhaps, linked to those lines and points in a landscape (rituals and festivals at certain places at certain times mark these intersections and possibilities of transit). Might the art-anthropology hybrid be an appropriate probe-head to experimentally follow these lines? To track and tack between these points?"

Different lines of causality and points of intersection are two evocative images here. I can visualise ways in which this can be shown on paper. It's like a mark making provocation you can see working really well in a workshop setting!