Split the Lark - and you’ll find the Music-
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled-
Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear, when Lutes be old-
Loose the Flood - you shall find it patent-
Gush after Gush, reserved for you-
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
Emily Dickinson, 1865
Dickenson's enigmatic poems, often deficient in meaning, present us with states of feeling that are severed from the (geography/orientation/context) that might explain them.
Her contemplations on life and death, beauty and deformity, wonder and loss, light and shadow, are all themes of which I have been concerned with for much of my artistic practice.
In Split the Lark, Dickinson describes something behind the visible, exposing the interiority of the body as a sight of mystical experience. This particular poem is the starting point of this new body of work.
Split the Lark comprises panel paintings that are based on the deconstructed forms of ecclesiastical devotional objects such as alters, predellas and confessional partitions.