I Want to Eat the Blues

I am in the blue zone again.  Again I return here after roaming elsewhere.  Puddles of paint become giant pools but it’s still not enough, I need more pools, growing ever deeper.  I mix raw pigment with flowing gloss and fold powder into matte paste and scrape and wash and pour, and I ruminate on the blues spectrum and their singular natures.  Their different voices, the nuances they speak of, their sound and intuitive reality.

It’s the spaces between the form that are most potent with magic.  A delicate wash of powder blue morphing into ultramarine, the exciteful one, as it draws away from you yet pulls you with it into its body.  This most electric hue entered and became resident, it made its home in all my work.  I regard my Yves-Klein-esque blue painting in progress and decide I must record what I perceive in the souls of all the blues showing themselves to me.

The dark smoky blue of Kali, a soft ashen blue that glows.  Like a dark bruise blue but beautiful, on the verge of healing.  Her fiery rage boiling over but controlled, embodied by this calm, cooling blue.

Kali, Goddess Tarot

A pthalo dark blue that stains the surface with deep inky washes, resonating with depth, a deep silent pool.  What lurks?  No one knows.  But something’s looking back at you from under there.  A presence breathes in the depths.  It’s only resting, it won’t bite.  Don’t agitate it.  Leave it to cool, let it sleep.

Indigo blue, the blue of rain-damp autumn nights as you walk back home.  The smell of rain, a comforting darkness.  Opaque but not oppressive.  A dark cloud, but one that lifts and allows the emergence of bright things.  It’s a soft cloak that makes you invisible when you want it to.

Duck egg blue.  The smallest whisper of blue, too shy to call itself blue.  Blue and grey holding hands.  A blue that can never be sad for too long, its nature seeded in the optimism of spring.  I am a blue egg.  Most eggs are brown but I, alone, am blue.  Eat me, eat spring.

French ultramarine blue.  A blue brimming with chemical attraction to itself, full of sexy mysticism.  A mystery that doesn’t mind revealing itself, it tells its stories over and over if you step into it and submerge yourself.  It’s like Barbarella’s orgasmatron, deceptively powerful.  The most thrilling time of evening.  It promises calm but absolutely electrifies.  Tingles, chemistry, zinging through you.  Like sitting around an open fire and regarding the blue that leaves day behind whilst you are surrounded by chatter and energy.  And it’s the very blue that speaks of the whale song.  It’s joyful lilt.  The blue that falls in love with itself.  Beautifying.  Dive in.  Coat me.  I swallow you.

  Blue Paintings, mixed media on canvas, (c) N. Nazir, 2018

Cerulean blue.  Singing blue, mezzo soprano, the swallow flies and swoops and soars again.  Confident blue, unafraid, with a clear way and a wide horizon.  Flowing forward freely.  A blue that sits comfortably in the centre, full of song and conversation, a middle high note, not shy, not quiet, but piercing, lyrical.  Stealing the attention, other blues have to step back because the chatty charming child has entered the room.  Let them dominate you a while, give them your energy, give them something.

  Digital Print, Bristol, (c) N. Nazir, 2016

Cornflower blue.  No, you are not lilac though bluebells wear you.  You are naturally occurring summer in form.  You speak of the lush undergrowth along dusty roads after a monsoon rainfall.  Delicate but strong, hardy.  Young, unsullied.  You regard the onlooker innocently, modestly, but you know how strong you are.  You call out though you are small and you demand life, you take it.  You steal your win everywhere in abundance.  You don’t need to be big to be powerful.

Now, if only I could play the blues too…

(c) N Nazir 2018

Eurydice’s Escape

Eurydice’s Escape, PoArtry Exhibition
Biro, paper, PVA glue, acrylic and spray paint on cardboard
© N. Nazir 2017

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the most frustrating tragedies I’ve ever read.

I recently took part in an exhibition where poets and artists were paired together at random to create a piece of art and likewise a poem in response to the other as muse.  I had the good fortune to work with published poet, Robert Francis, who wrote Orpheus, a poetry anthology I read with great interest, which references snippets of the legendary myth in parts.  Not being familiar with it, it certainly provoked a response from me.

In short, Eurydice, daughter of Apollo, is a beautiful charming nymph that Orpheus, a legendary musician and poet, falls deeply in love with.  And because no woman, natural or supernatural, can resist the power of his music she falls madly for him too.  Anyway, they soon get married and enjoy a brief spell of passionate joy that is cut short when, soon after their wedding day, Eurydice is running through the meadows being pursued by a lesser known god not worth mentioning, who, possessed by lust, couldn’t help trying his luck, the dirty dog.  In her haste, she steps on a viper, is bitten and dies.  Oh, and then is immediately cast down to Hades.  I’m sorry, what?

Well.  Orpheus is absolutely devastated on hearing that his soul mate has been stolen from him and is now residing in hell, that he goes around singing the blues and playing the lyre wherever he goes, melting all who hear his heartrending lament, including the birds, the trees, the rocks, anything with or without a pulse.  He then resolves to enter the Underworld and negotiate with Hades himself to agree a release for his precious Eurydice.  On entering, he manages to win over the three-headed dog, melt the stony hearts of the three furies, and the demons themselves cannot resist him, crying their eyes out in sympathy on hearing his sorrowful music.  Soon, he is faced with Hades, god of the Underworld.  Many a brave soul has begged Hades to return their loved one to them and he has always refused, but there is something so hauntingly beautiful about Orpheus and his heart-aching melodies that Hades softens, remembering how he fell in love with Persephone, his queen of the Underworld, and pursued and captured her against her will so she couldn’t escape but then after a while it turned out she loved him too in a twisted way, much in the same way those captured end up loving their kidnappers…but that’s another story.  Let’s deal with this one.

So Hades relents and agrees to reunite Orpheus with his love and lead Eurydice out of the Underworld back up to the earth, but on one condition (obvs, it wasn’t going to be that easy).  During his journey he must not glance back at her, not once, until they are both safely outside of the dark tunnel.  If he fails, she will be cast back down to Hades forever.  So, Orpheus leads her out of the Underworld remembering and honouring this agreement, trusting that his wife is behind him.  At the very last moment, just as he steps out of the tunnel into the light, excited, like an idiot, he turns around to greet her forgetting himself and casts his eyes upon her face.  Immediately he realises what he has done and poor Eurydice, one step away from redemption, looks at him in horror and barely able to utter a farewell, is instantly dragged back down into the Underworld whilst the shocked and mortified Orpheus tries to grasp her only to grasp thin air.  Oh dear.  But seriously, couldn’t you wait just a few more seconds?

He is forbidden to return to Hades having failed this task and spends the rest of his earthly life – which is very short as he gets attacked and torn from limb to limb by a bunch of drunken banshees whose advances he rejects – roaming the fields and crying his eyes out and playing the lyre in heartbroken abandon.

On learning of this torrid tale, I could only think that’s it, after all that?  No redemption at all?  Surely Orpheus’s and Eurydice’s love should have won?  How frustrating!  What a silly hopeless story with a pointlessly tragic ending.  However, some accounts tell of their reunion in the afterlife when he too is cast down to Hades after his mortal death.

Why is Eurydice so powerless in the whole scenario?  She was just an innocent, the ultimate damsel needing rescue.  Why couldn’t she rescue herself?  As a nymph, didn’t this embodiment afford her some magical leeway to release her from her fate?  Why is she cast down to Hades when all she did was try and escape the clutches of a rapey entity who was perving at her in the bushes?  Why didn’t she go to heaven instead?  She was a good nymph.  It’s as if she deserved such ill luck for not allowing herself to be molested, which some may argue is a lesser evil to suffer than being cast down to Hell for eternity.  Why are the laws so favourable to the male characters in this story?  And the fact that Eurydice’s only crime was to have fallen in love with Orpheus doesn’t make divine sense at all.

I mean, I have to applaud his momentous efforts, his public mourning, his admirable crusade to find his lost love.  But he messes it all up right at the moment he could have won her back!  What a goof.  And yeah, he must surely suffer forever after for damning her, for never being there when she was snatched from him and then being the cause of her demise the second time.  But hey, the realist in me says she turned him into the best musician he could ever hope to become.  So, dry your eyes, Orpheus, and go get yourself a record deal.  Eurydice was the ultimate muse.  Because of her, he dragged forth his art to the point of melting demons to tears, indeed making demons realise they had a heart, and therefore entering and exiting hell unscathed.  Damn, he’s got to be good.  She drew out his well of talent to the utmostest.  What exactly did you do for her, Orpheus?  You weren’t there when she needed you, you got her hopes up with your charming rescue attempt but then you cast her back down to damnation because you forgot your promise.  Shabash.

Hence, disappointed with the fact that Eurydice’s story was one of a female as victim from start to finish, and being presented with an opportunity to work with a poet whose writings referenced this sorry love story, I wanted to depict her as a more wily clever nymph, who does save herself, who finds her own way out of Hades with or without Orpheus, so the Underworld is not a doomed final destination but rather somewhere she was wrongfully cast down upon and could somehow, using her wits and wile, escape.

Perhaps she is helped by a will ‘o’ the wisp, sprite, elf, or other magical creature allied to the nymphs, but through sheer cunning, clever strategems, faith and the courageous acceptance that she may perish trying, she does it.  Because there must be an escape from damnation if you’re an innocent?  And isn’t it better to die trying than to give up?  And surely, love conquers all?

© N. Nazir 2017

*I used cardboard because I like making “high art” on “low” materials.  Although this is a sketch, it was exhibited as it was and is a starting point for a series of works based on Eurydice’s journey to come.

Why do I paint stars?

^{Devotional Series V, Mixed Media on Plastered Wall, Blue Orange Theatre Bar, Birmingham, © N Nazir 2016}

Because it reminds me of death.  The time after death, the after place, full of endless, boundless peace.  Yes, it’s a cliché but that’s what I see.  That rolling mass of space filled with billions upon trillions of stars with your soul draped betwixt the realities after it has left its body, taking a well-earned rest before it returns once again in whatever life form it seeks for the next chapter.  I suspect it loves that rest, looks forward to it, feels relief.  It stretches its supernatural limbs and hangs dot-to-dot through the stars and marvels and sighs and then thinks, damn, it’s time, I have to go back already.  To once again emerge from a wet birthing vagina into a different life, genes, culture, social class, talent, maybe better or worse than before but I think secretly self-chosen.  For the next stage of its particular evolution.  I speculate on this possibility of how it is.  I like this idea, it feels true to me even though no one knows.

So when I paint stars I seek to tap into that manifold depth, that going into feeling when a space is receding away from you and drawing you into it.  I build up the translucent layers and hues and try and capture just a piece of this metaphysical marrow.  It can only be a ghost sighting however.  The reality would be mind-blowingly beautiful.  The paintings are but a glimpse.

^{Devotional Series V, Mixed Media on Plastered Wall, Blue Orange Theatre Bar, Birmingham, © N Nazir 2016}

I remember being about six and watching TV with my dad and I can’t remember what we were watching but there was a scene where it went dark between frames and I suddenly had a powerful premonition about death, what it meant, the finality of it.  I realised that everyone dies, that I would one day die, and the totality of it freaked me out.  I think I exclaimed out loud or made some kind of noise because my dad looked at me and said, what’s wrong? What is it? Are you feeling okay?  And I just didn’t have the words to explain what I felt, this indescribable fear, this sensation of dread that there was this thing, death, and there was nothing you could do about it.  And my dad couldn’t say anything to comfort me because he didn’t understand why I was upset and just ended up saying something like everything’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about.  But I didn’t feel fine and couldn’t shake off that uneasy feeling. That good stuff ended. That everyone died. That I was finite.

This insight stayed with me for a long time and I remember having other realisations afterwards.  I was about seven and sitting in class and I wasn’t able to concentrate on what the teacher was saying because all I could think was: I’m inside this body looking out and I can see other people but they’re not inside here with me and that’s lonely, but then surely they’re also inside themselves looking out so they must be lonely too but they look like they’re having a good time, running around, playing and having fun.  I then became so aware of this sensation of being separate, of this inner space that no one occupied but me that I so wanted to reach out to someone and not feel trapped but again, I didn’t know how to explain it.  How does a child explain this?  I used to draw a lot.  That always helped.  And so did staring at the night sky.

And so I came to love stars.  Losing yourself in that swallowing expansion, being lifted and gulped into that beautiful vortex and to keep moving through it upward forever because it was infinite.  I may reside alone within this body but I could change my relation to the space I resided within and look at the stars from different vantage points, or even different sides of the planet, and this…makes me happy.  Now I revel within this body, this amazing vehicle that can do so many wondrous things.

^{Devotional Series III, Acrylic on Canvas, © N Nazir 2014}

And I love that feeling of being in transit from one place to another, or resting in between a new body of space.  Of my being chemicalising into the energy of a new place.  That spiritual feeling of atomised collusion in the particles around me merging with my own. Or, in layman’s terms, entering and merging into the eternal present moment.  And I’m always left with a vivid impression of the time and place when the fusion happened, when I aligned with everything.  Alignment with everything, that’s what it is.  And it’s the closest feeling to happiness that I know.

Like looking out of my hotel room window in Dolceacqua a few years ago and scenting incense in the balmy summer air, taking in the deserted cobbled streets, the pastel white-washed walls of the quaint houses, the rich peace of that late siesta afternoon.  Something exquisite approached me that moment, some invisible thing; it entered my soul and never left.  

Like last summer when I was travelling by train to Zurich and the moment I entered Switzerland I was struck dumb by the breathtaking surroundings, as depicted by any of the great Romantics, a landscape so wholesome you could just eat it, become it, exude its raw health.  

Like walking around the busy streets of New York one night a few years ago, stopping to buy a t-shirt from an outdoor market seller, and suddenly experiencing a wave of euphoria go through me as I happened to look up at the towering sky scrapers.  I realised they were more than just concrete, the streets were more than just tarmac.  It was as if I could tangibly feel the animated life spirit whizzing around through them and it had just whooshed through me.  

Or other moments, like when I have taught a child something significant for the first time and then they look at me with enormous lucid eyes and you just know you have left your indelible imprint and they will always remember you as the one who taught them that thing they come to love.  Magical alignment as your particles transform and you and the moment are one.  It fills me out one piece at a time.

^{Devotional Series II, Acrylic on Canvas, © N Nazir 2016}

And so the stars shine and wink, shoot and burn, sparkle and shimmer. They’re going nowhere.  Their comfort is always there.  Like distant friends.  Like wishes coming into being.  My resting place in between reincarnations perhaps.  Magic weaving the seams of time so there is no time.  Just stillness.  And soundless beingness.

^{© N Nazir 2017}

Latest Drawings…

A couple of sketches I did recently.  Not my best, still refining my technique but enjoying the process nonetheless.  Again, I prefer these unfinished, as if they’re still emerging.  He’s one of my favourite musicians.  Can you guess which one?  Alas, he is no longer with us.

^{Jeff, biro on watercolour paper, © N Nazir 2016}

^{© N Nazir 2016}

On the Necessity of Art: Part II

_{Symphony I (Crescendo Rising), Acrylic on Wood, © N Nazir 2013}

I love painting.  I know I said I’m a closet painter but I am out of the closet.  I just like to keep it hush in some circles.

It’s the visceral texture and nature of paint I love, the smell, the way it moves, bleeds, changes and morphs.  My later paintings employ this method of wet on wet, or free painting, as I like to think of it, painting without brushes, letting it do what it will, sometimes with a little coercion, slant the surface here, coax it there, let it seep, blow on it with straws.  You can sculpt with it up to a point.  You can blanket materials in colour and make an assemblage of your painting (think Julian Schnabel’s crockery paintings), you can wear it and roll around in it (think Yves Klein enormous performance art pieces and the models he used as his brushes), you can throw it all around the place and the marks will always be different (Pollock, obviously).  It’s a tantalising playground.  I would love to swim in a vat of it.  Give me a vat of blue and I’ll throw myself in.  (Residency, anyone?  I’ll do it if you let me).

I am also deeply sensitive to colour.  In fact, I am obsessed with colour.  Some I just want to eat and consume whole.  At times I will live in a particular colour for a while because my soul exudes it or is in need of it, and paint gives me immediate access to that colour with a need to assimilate it.  I don’t always know why I need it but it makes sense later on.  For instance, I need yellow when I am feeling hypersensitive to people or atmosphere; it provides me with a welcome barrier to all those energies flying around.  I wear black when I want to be voluntarily introverted, when I don’t feel any desire to communicate with anyone.  I’m just entirely comfortable immersed in whatever I’m doing without sharing.  I often live in a constant spectrum of blue and this has many meanings for me so I won’t go into that now.

Sometimes, all that needs expression is a single gesture, a single movement, a single mark with a single hue on a blank surface.  And that’s it.  Nothing else needs to be said. Any more would ruin the work.  If you don’t get it, the artist won’t care.  Somebody somewhere will understand.

However, I do need to be quicker at painting.  Sometimes they just take so long and I’ve already moved onto the next thing.  It feels good to finish a work.  Equally, it also feels good to leave a work unfinished, it’s better unresolved.  It has something more fluid and powerful about it.

Anyway, that’s enough about painting.

_{Birth series, oil and thinner on canvas, © N Nazir 2009}

^{© N Nazir 2016}