I am a visual artist and PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art, with a research project called 'The Artist's Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts', which has been recently published in a two-volume book (Mousse Publishing) . My practice is eminently interdisciplinary: I am active as a visual artist, researcher, and writer - all of which I simply summarize as being an artist. My research on the artist's novel and my interest in games have in common a creative exploration of their performative elements, which is more obvious in games, and in the artist's novel lies in the stimulation of faculties such as imagination, identification, and narrative empathy. As I understand it, art is something that happens and, from this viewpoint, it can be narrated.
The Writing Is on the Wall - Wall painting, 380x300 cm. AVL Mundo, Keileweg 18, Rotterdam (2019). ABRACADABRA. We are used to hear it as a magic formula, but its origin is uncertain. In the second century AC, the Gnostics were a flourishing Christian sect - the first one to be considered heretic as well. It is said that the Gnostics originated as a branch of Zoroastrianism, which is the oldest monotheistic religion in the world, coming from Persia and founded by Zarathustra 4,000 years ago. Roman physician, Quintus Serenus Sammonicus (follower of Basilides) advised to inscribe ABRACADABRA in amulets as an incantation to be read out loud in order to spell malaria. It was read line by line, so that the diminishing length of the word corresponded with the process of the receding illness. ABRACADABRA means something like 'I create as a I speak'. Indeed, the whole point of the incantation is that it must be read aloud. Silent reading is a relatively recent invention, the first written texts were a string of signs that conveyed sounds to be produced orally. Deciding the end of a word and the beginning of another was up to the reader, which usually entailed practicing the text prior to its utterance in front of an audience. It was only much later that punctuation was developed by Christian medieval monks, as silence became a requirement to work in the scriptorium and a visual aid was necessary in order to make sense of the signs. Today, we relate reading to a solitary activity that is done in silence and isolation. The actual reader's voice has been replaced by an inner voice that resonates in the silent reader's mind. Just think of a reader's body position: hanging head, lowered eyelids, doesn't it remind you of a shameful child, creating a force-field around her in an effort to avert the other's gaze? The step to switch from introversion to extroversion is fairly simple, all you need to do to transform this inner voice to an audible performance is begin reading aloud. Reading out loud implies shared reading, and the writing is on the wall for everyone to see.
The Royal Game of Ur - Unbaked clay, 45x25x10 cm (2019). The Royal Game of Ur was popular in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago, being one of the oldest board games known to humanity, and was rediscovered in the ancient city of Ur, in the 1920s. I made a replica for visitors to my Secret Gallery to play it, bringing back from oblivion a game whose popularity dwindled about 2,000 years ago. It remains surprisingly fun and sophisticated.
Bulla - Unbaked clay, 22 cm diameter, (2019). This is one in a series of 6 hollow clay balls containing secret objects and personal mementos. The creation of these Bullas is based on a proto-writing technique developed in Ancient Mesopotamia in 8000–3000 BC. The fact that the clay is not baked enables the object to retain a certain potential performative moment in itself: when in a possible future it may crack open, revealing its content. This moment may never arrive or arrive after my death. The question about interpreting the reason why this object was placed there will inevitably arise, opening the way to multiple interpretations, none of which will be correct.
The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts / Part 1: A New Medium - Why do artists write novels? What does the artist's novel do to the visual arts? How should such a novel be experienced? The Artist's Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts finds its momentum in the current international art scene, where the debate about the hybridisation of visual arts and literature is becoming increasingly prominent. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of visual artists who create novels as part of their wider art projects. They do so in order to address artistic issues by means of novelistic devices, favouring a sort of art predicated on process and subjectivity, introducing notions such as fiction, narrative, and imagination. In this sense, it is possible to speak of a new medium in the visual arts; yet, very little is known about it. This two-volume publication is the first to explore in depth the subject of the artist's novel. Part 1: A New Medium aims to elucidate the pressing questions posed by the emergence of a new artistic medium with a theoretical approach to a number of key case studies, which critically examines the different ways contemporary artists have employed the artist's novel. The intention is not to fix a definition of what the artist's novel is, but rather to situate it within the broader field of the visual arts in the hopes of sparking a much-needed discussion about a practice that has long been ignored by the main critical strands in art discourse.
The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts / Part 2: The Fantasy of the Novel - Why do artists write novels? What does the artist’s novel do to the visual arts? How should such a novel be experienced? The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts finds its momentum in the current international art scene, where the debate about the hybridisation of visual arts and literature is becoming increasingly prominent. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of visual artists who create novels as part of their wider art projects. They do so in order to address artistic issues by means of novelistic devices, favouring a sort of art predicated on process and subjectivity, introducing notions such as fiction, narrative, and imagination. In this sense, it is possible to speak of a new medium in the visual arts; yet, very little is known about it. This two-volume publication is the first to explore in depth the subject of the artist’s novel.
Part 2: The Fantasy of the Novel is a research project in the form of a novel, which examines the process of creation of an artist’s novel that came about through five episodic performances and an exhibition. The protagonist is in the position of a detective who tries to understand the conditions under which an artist decides to write, and how such a thing is possible within an artistic setting. His discoveries appear in the form of clues that connect all the different layers of the research.
Tiamat-basti - Indian ink on paper, 75x105 cm (2020)
Necklace of Queen Tiamat-bašti with an inscription: ‘Tiamat-bašti, beloved consort of Šu-Sîn, the king of Ur’. Thirteen pearls of agate are mounted in gold, and twenty-two of cornelian are strung on a silver thread. This necklace was found intertwined with that of Queen Kubatum. 2000 BC.
