2013

Between walks, book ends of the day Bassie goes from despot to despot, from her oversized Persian cushion under the window ledge, to her wicker basket bed with the enormous Balinese cushions nestled inside, which sits by the heater in my study. Sometimes she curls up on the wooden floorboards dozing, or sniffing around for a scent––on the hunt. A little affection sets her off. She pines for it. Sometimes when the need gets too full she jumps up, licks and snorts to be cuddled––to be loved. And when she looks into my eyes with those cocoa spheres of longing I temporarily escape through a portal to another dimension. Keyholes to freedom. She has been neglected because of child tending. She was my first dog-baby. Now her job is to endure the overly persistent pats of children, the accidental whacks. She stages small rebellions––gets more stubborn with age. She refuses not being allowed on the upstairs carpet. She snoozes on the sofa too––when she can get away with it. Her life turns in circles, for she still has that old neurosis of chasing her tale from boredom. Iggy Pop sings: ‘A dog is a machine for loving.’ He borrowed these words from Michel Houellebecq’s novel ‘Possibilité d’une Isle’. Houellebecq writes: ‘Love is simple to define. But it seldom happens in the series of beings. Through these dogs we pay homage to love. And to its possibility. What is a dog, but a machine for loving?’

Boundary Speak (Diaries 2013-2021) centrally focuses on reportage of my life’s happenings, notes on readings, phantasms or wild forays, riffs off music or footnotes from poems that take me on a strange journey, ruminations and thought fragments. My outsider artwork is focal on my Re-learn your Alphabet for the Twenty-First Century drawings (some of which are collaborations with my children), my robot series, as well as many other drawings undertaken over the period 2013-2021.