I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds (Openings to ecstasy)
Written depictions exploring themes of ecstasy; from desire and drugs, to meditation and ekstasis: to be outside of oneself, transcribed with ink on soluble paper, dissolved in water, and presented in found glass vials.
Materials: Water, ink, paper, glass and crystal bottles
Edition: Bespoke version in ongoing series.
Date of artwork: 2023
Date of series: 2016
Texts used in the creation of the artwork include:
1.
So much I gazed, Constantine P. Cavafy
So much I gazed on beauty,
that my vision is replete with it.
Contours of the body. Red lips. Voluptuous limbs.
Hair as if taken from greek statues;
always beautiful, even when uncombed,
and it falls, slightly, over white foreheads.
Faces of love, as my poetry
wanted them…. in the nights of my youth,
in my nights, secretly, met….
2.
Last Night As I Was Sleeping, Antonio Machado
I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds (Let the night open your ears)
Yasunari Kawabata’s unsent letter to Hatsuyo Itō transcribed with ink on soluble paper and presented in a single glass bottle with a silver stopper.
Materials: Water, ink, paper, glass, silver
Edition: Bespoke version in ongoing series.
Date of artwork: 2023
Date of series: 2016
Text used in the creation of the artwork:
Have you looked at the letter I sent on October 27th? I haven’t heard back from you, and so every single day I worry and fret and cannot be still. Has my letter failed to reach your hands, did the monks find out and scold you, would you get in trouble for responding, or perhaps you have fallen ill, and when I think that you might have really fallen ill I cannot even sleep at night. Anyway, please make it so you can come to Tokyo soon. I miss you, I miss you, and if I do not see you soon I cannot do a thing. I wrote about the particulars in the letter I sent on the 27th, but about that thing, whenever is good for you is fine. I’ll do it as you tell me to. Please write something back about whatever you’d like. It’s just, when you’re on a trip by yourself it makes me worry and I feel helpless, so please stop. I will make sure to go greet you. So if you can get on a train somehow, that would be nice. If you’re worried about what would happen after you come to Tokyo, I’ll do whatever you wish there, too. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. Don’t worry about your father. I’ll take responsibility for the Taiwan issue too. I’ll even come back to the country.
I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds (6 offerings to the 10th Muse)
Six individual translations of Sappho’s Fragment 31 transcribed with ink on soluble paper, dissolved in water, and presented in found crystal and glass decanters.
Materials: Water, ink, paper, glass and crystal decanters
Edition: Bespoke version in ongoing series.
Date of artwork: 2023
Date of series: 2016
Texts used in the creation of the artwork include:
[Top left] Translated by Mary Barnard (1958)
[Top right] Translated by William Carlos Williams (1958)
[Middle left] Translated by John Hall (1652)
[Middle right] Translated by Mary Hewitt (1845)
[Bottom left] Translated by Anne Carson (2002)
[Bottom right] Translated by Edward Storer (1915)