Completed Painting: [dc]circuit 05/Kafka

'[dc]circuit 05/Kafka', Acrylic, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
400 mm x 400 mm, 2026

Finally, we reach the fifth and final panel in my suite of ‘[dc]circuit’ paintings - namely, ‘[dc]circuit 05/Kafka’. Given the alchemical sequence implied in this group (as discussed in my last post), it’s only fitting that this one should be gold(ish) in its overall palette, and a variety of metallics do catch the light when it’s viewed from certain angles. It also seems appropriate that this one should be dedicated to Franz Kafka - my own personal gold standard when it comes to influential/inspirational literature. Given all my other tastes, it’s perhaps too predictable that I should also be a Kafka fan-boy, but there it is - he’s as good as it gets for me, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

This is the smallest of the set of five - being 400 mm square. When I first began to envisage these panels I decided to break my usual habit of painting related works or series of works at the same scale and format, and to inject a little more irregularity into proceedings. Therefore, whilst the three rectangular elements share a 600 mm x 400 mm portrait format, this one and ’02’ are square, albeit radically different in scale (’02’ being 600 mm x 600 mm). It felt important that the gold panel should be the smallest, suggesting a degree of value/scarcity, or perhaps that the best things often come in small packages. As is well known, Kafka’s novelistic oeuvre is also pretty small, and regarding ‘finished’ ones - even smaller. Admittedly, he somewhat made up for that with his copious output of short stories, but it was the novels I had particularly in mind here - specifically, ‘The Castle’ [1.].

Although it is never directly referenced in the text, it seems clear to me that Franz’s castle is, to all intents and purposes, the Pražký Hrad of his own home town, Prague. Anyone familiar with that destination knows how that massive edifice presides over the rest of the city, whilst somehow managing to remain strangely aloof. Just like Kafka’s castle, it is physically difficult to access frontally, involving a trek across the wide river on a congested bridge, before climbing steep streets and a formidable flight of stone stairs. The nominally ‘easier’ far entrance still involves a tram journey to a stop that many out-of-town visitors will fail to recognise, thus requiring a significant back-tracking exercise on foot. 

Of course, Kafka’s own castle is as much of a state of mind as a physical entity, with his hapless and reluctant Land Agent, K, repeatedly failing to gain acceptance by its ruling bureaucracy, and by extension - the infuriatingly obstructive denizens of the lower settlement, just as he fails to locate the correct route to a building he can clearly see. That neither his duties or any estate under his purview are ever defined, and that all roads repeatedly deny him access, seem to speak both to the Deleuzian idea of de/territorialisation mentioned in my previous post, and to the constant processes of random cartographic atomisation that characterise my work. As the novel unfolds, it becomes evident that gaining grudging favour from above is also difficult for the characters K encounters, and very easily lost also - for reasons none can fully explain. Worse still, he appears to become increasingly complicit in the worsening condition of any with whom he might have formed a relationship. As an outsider lacking any previous knowledge of the Castle and the impenetrable social hierarchies it dictates, he really never stood a chance. Kafka abandons his novel mid-thought (just as death interrupts a life, perhaps - allegory fans), suggesting he has become just as exhausted as is his protagonist, by the impenetrable world he has depicted.

Anyone lucky enough to visit Prague’s Hrad for ‘real’ will know that it is to encounter an enclosed, self-rposessed world of interlocking courtyards, internalised worship, arcane libraries, barred towers, and even a ‘hidden’ lane set aside for its incorporated subordinates. It is built on such a scale as to constitute a separate city within a city, and one has little sense of the streets below, once one is absorbed within its walls. For all it’s status as a prime tourist spectacle, complete with occasional outbursts of picturesque pageantry, it mostly exudes an air of eerie implacability and hidden intelligences - a fitting seat perhaps for the truly incestuous Hapsburg elite for whom it became at least a partial H.Q. The aforementioned and quaintly claustrophobic ‘Golden Lane’, enclosed towards the rear of the castle complex, was originally built for the royal goldsmiths, and it transpires that one of Kafka’s sisters later rented one of the small dwellings there for a while. Franz would occasionally visit, to write in relative seclusion.

My own little panel scrambles maps of the surrounding Hradčany district, along with a (partial) ground plan of the edifice itself in eroded form. The addition of a ghostly ‘K’ should be fairly obvious - it being the single most significant Kafkaesque ‘character’, if one refers to the protagonists of his three novels. My translation of ‘The Castle’ to ‘Das Schloss’ reflects the fact that, as a member of the minority Jewish population of Prague, Franz was expected to speak and write in German rather than the dominant Czech tongue. In effect, he was himself culturally marginalised twice over.

Whilst engaged in the production of these ‘[dc]circuit’ panels, I also happened to read a popular history of Prague, ‘Prague in Black and Gold’, by Peter Demetz [2.]. Of particular interest was the chapter outlining the reign of Rudolf II (the Bohemian lands being just one component of his territorial possessions as Holy Roman Emperor). Rudolf stands as a singularly picturesque but somewhat reclusive member of the Hapsburgs - a dynasty not exactly short on eccentric  characters. He ruled as HRE between 1576 and 1612, and is often seen as having partially  facilitating the catastrophic Thirty Years War that would convulse Europe, through his ineffectual  or misguided statecraft. Of more relevance to my own project is his status as one of the most voraciously acquisitive Renaissance collectors of art, jewels, weaponry, specimens of natural history, proto-scientific equipment, and exotica of all kinds. Alongside his famed ‘cabinet of curiosities’, he compiled an extensive and fantastic library to reflect his many interests and enthusiasms - not least of which was Alchemy. During Rudolph's reign, the numerous artists, scholars, philosophers, astronomers, astrologers, antiquarian dealers and cultural envoys invited to his court, were accompanied by a small army of alchemists - many of whom were patronised in their researches by the Emperor. Notable amongst these were the infamous John Dee and his distinctly shadier associate, Edward Kelley.

Thus it was that, for a period, Prague became famed as an alchemical hot-spot throughout Europe. Numerous medieval cellars throughout the ‘Golden City’, some still buried beneath the grand Baroque architecture that tourists now flock to admire, would become choked with fumes and encrusted with residues from experiments of varying degrees of toxicity and/or fatality. One might even argue that, at certain subterranean locations, the very fabric of the Prague became chemically altered - just as it was perhaps psychically transformed by the alchemists’ quest. I’ve long been fascinated by the ideas behind what became known as Psychogeography, but can’t help wondering if Psycho-chemistry isn’t also a label we might usefully employ. After all, any city is a kind of reactive crucible, whose multiple narratives might be recounted through the resulting accretions of grime, patination and chemical residues found on every surface.

Anyhow, his concludes my posts relating to each of the individual ‘[dc]circuit’ panels. However, the actual intention was always to compose an assemblage of five components that might be viewed as a whole, and I’ve yet to decide exactly how successful (or otherwise) I may have been in this. Lacking any easily accessible wall large enough to hang the group, I really need now to mock them up in miniature to assess how well they work together, and in which configuration(s) they might best be viewed. Certainly, their deliberately varying shapes and sizes dictate that a little creative experimentation is required there. Therefore, I hope to devote one more post to the group as a whole - and perhaps also to detail the overall alchemical sequence as it is finally revealed. 

Sometimes it feels like documenting all this stuff is almost more work than making the blinkin’ things in the first place!

[1.]:  Franz Kafka, ‘The Castle’ [Trans. J. A. Underwood], London/NYC, Penguin, 1926/1997

[2.]:  Peter Demetz, ‘Prague in Black and Gold’, London/NYC, Penguin, 1997

[Komponiert ohne künstliche intelligenz]

Completed Painting: 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 4'

 

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 4', Acrylics, Paint Pen, Paper Collage, Ink, Watercolour,
French Polish, Spray Enamel on Panel,  60 cm x 60 cm, 2023

The focus shifts back to my own East Midlands back yard once again. This is the most-recently completed of what I currently regard as my ‘Great Central’ pieces. That’s just a working title really (nominally indicating the small parcel of territory under consideration) - which is perhaps reflective of my current attempts to work in a more fluid, non-committal or less compartmentalised way. 

 

Discretely labelled sub-series have already emerged under this umbrella, but the seepage of themes and motifs between them is considerable. Connections and layered narratives coalesce in a hopefully more rhizomorphic fashion (in the Deluzian sense), and while certain geographical/mental cartographies are both delineated and pinned - I reserve the right to take any unfamiliar diversion, be it through space or time (observed or imagined), as intuition dictates. This naturally renders any attempt at linear or coherent analysis pretty difficult. One plus-point of this change of orientation (in my mind - at least), is a side-stepping of customary attempts to over-explain things to both myself and others, down the years. Stylistic tropes and subject categories may still appear reasonably familiar, but I genuinely believe that the underlying logics in the work are a little more organically cultivated nowadays. It’s no coincidence that this is the first time I’ve showcased one of these pieces alongside anything other than a wilfully obscure fragment of 'experimental' text. I only do so now as I’m a bit between such ‘bits’, and these pics have been waiting around for a little while.

 

Anyway, for what it’s worth - the imagery here may or may not relate to:

 

• A complex of local hotel and office buildings, erected as part of the redevelopment of a significant tract of central Leicester, viewed across the river Soar and an intervening construction site (sometime in 2021).

• The vaguely similar architectural massing of Prague’s Castle complex, viewed across the river Vltava (sometime in the 1990s, whilst on a somewhat intoxicated holiday of my own).

• Kafka’s great, unfinished novel (important – that), ‘The Castle’, with its deeply unsettling account of a stranger profoundly lost in an unfamiliar land. [1.]

• Marcel Proust’s unreliable memories of teenage holidays spent at Le Grand-Hotel in Balbec/Combray, and his (highly subjective – possibly delusional) attempts to become reconciled with a lost personal history. [2.]

• The printed pages and digital frames of mediation/mapping which might allow us to travel through space and time, in order to unlock any of these spaces at will, and in any chosen configuration.

• The nature of mediation, and the (welcome) unexpected resonances which may occur when a narrative or image is misunderstood, misheard, or unsatisfactorily resolved.

• The sheer coincidence of simply reading a certain text (possibly on a whim), at the time a particular photograph or painting is being made.

 

There’s plenty to un-pick there, so hopefully, it’s enough to be going on with…

[1.]:  Franz Kafka, 'The Castle', London, Penguin Modern Classics, 1922/2030/2015

[2.]:  Marcel Proust, 'In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower', ('In Search of Lost Time' Vol 2), London, Penguin Classics, 1919/2003.

Completed Painting: 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 3'

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 3', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2023

[Reconfigured/Translated Composite]:

Overall, from this distance, the castle corresponded to ideas. But then, in many ways, our time is eaten away by the idea of showing objects only with the things that really accompany them, stripping them of their essence - the thought that isolated them from reality in the first place. It’s really just a shitty little town. A horse-drawn tram, a café, passers-by crossing the square, a branch of the Sparkasse, are collapsing syllable by syllable into the void under the irresistible forces of external pressure and the supply of air. If only tourism, the whole trip would be in vain. He’d better go back to his old homeland, where he did not stay so long. This penchant for new places and new people is naturally woven into our forgetfulness of the oldest. Of course, he still expected the road to finally turn towards the castle, and just because he expected it, he kept going - not that the heart doesn't also benefit from the analgesic medicine of habit once such a divorce has been accomplished. Until then he was constantly suffering.

The fear and anxiety I felt as I lay beneath the unfamiliar, overly high ceiling was nothing more than a protest of my surviving attachment to the familiar, lower ceiling. But then again, it was not a roar, it was the singing of voices far, far away - as if from the hum a single high-pitched but powerful voice came out in some impossible way and struck the ear as if trying to penetrate deeper (than a bare ear). These impressions, mingled with those I would have experienced in that other place, in that similar street, and surrounded by all the accompanying feelings which were common to both states and to themselves  (free breathing, curiosity, joy, laziness, good appetite, cheerfulness, increasing volume, consistency of a kind of pleasure, almost a mode of existence that I have rarely had the opportunity to revisit, but in which resurrected memories mix with physically perceived reality with sufficient memories, imagination, intangible reality for these places), which I crossed to give me not only an aesthetic experience, but also an intoxicating desire, although fleeting, to live there forever. It may happen that one department regulates this and another that, without the knowledge of the other - and although the overall control is most accurate, it is naturally too late, so some confusion may still arise.

You are under constant surveillance it seems, and on each of these floors the golden glow on the carpet suggested the sunset was outside the bathroom windows. Don't think of barriers as a definitive dividing line. It is not the desire to be famous, but the habit of hard work that can make us a creative artist - so it is not the joy of the present, but the sober reflection of the past that can strengthen us, preserve the future (except in bad times). You think exactly. I could only see these landscapes as a selection of daily changing images, displayed randomly in the place where I am, but not necessarily related to it. Several paths lead to the castle. Now it will be fashionable for most people to use one, now another, and they will all join. The rules governing the change have yet to be discovered, but we are aware, as if we have entered a new element, that unknown pressures have changed the dimensions of our feeling and we can no longer look at it as before. We know it's still there somewhere, but it's gone, it doesn't bother us anymore, it's content with the feeling that the presence gives it like a sensation that also satisfies us because we don't care… not here.

(With thanks to Franz Kafka & Marcel Proust)

Completed Painting: 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 2'

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 2', Acrylics on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2022

"I was amazed that the world contained people sufficiently different from myself for the manager of the hotel to have urged such a stroll upon me as a form of amusement, for there to be some to whom such a torture-chamber of unfamiliar quarters could actually be an ‘abode of delight’, as the hotel styled itself in its leaflet, possibly with some degree of license, although it was undeniably addressing a wide public whose views it shared. So, to attract such people to the Grand-Hotel of Balbec, it expatiated not only on ‘the exquisite cuisine’ and the ‘entrancing view from the gardens of the Casino’ but on ‘the great god Fashion, whose decrees no man of good breeding will care to flout, unless he does not mind being thought a Philistine.’” [1.]

“These impressions, mingling with the ones I would be experiencing in that other place, on that similar road, and surrounded by all the accessory feelings which were common to both states, and only by them – the sensation of breathing freely, curiosity, the enjoyment of being lazy, a good appetite, cheerfulness – would grow in volume, take on the consistency of a particular type of pleasure, almost a way of existence, one which I seldom had occasion to revisit but within which reawakened memories blended a physically perceived reality with enough remembered, fancied, ungraspable reality for these places I was passing through to give me, not just an aesthetic experience, but a heady desire, however fleeting, to live there for ever.” [2.]

Addendum:

My current working practices do not (by intention) follow a wholly linear or pre-determined path. a 'series' of works may come into being through processes of translation or mediation, with relatively little pre-intention. Progress may be slow and meandering, as opposed to methodically pursuing a set agenda. Just as the past may inform the present/future - so, equally, may a reversal of the temporal/mental flow apply. New readings may bring-about revisions. Lines may take flight backwards in order to move forwards (the lateral jump and parallel strand are also of prime importance). The painting previously entitled 'The Castle 1', is now renamed; 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 1'. Ultimately, the fixity of appellations should be of less relevance than the rhizomatic processes that bring them about.

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 1', Paper Collage & Acrylics on Panel,
600mm x 600 mm, 2022

[1.] & [2.]: Marcel Proust, ‘In Search of Lost Time’, ‘Volume 2, In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower’ (Trans. James Grieve), London, Penguin Books, 1919/2002

Completed Painting: 'Das Schloss 1 [vouch.speared.hooked.]

 

'Das Schloss 1 (vouch.speared.hooked)', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Paint Pen on Panel,
600 mm x 600 mm, 2022

Here's the completed version of one of the in-progress pieces teased here back in July. It's fair to say that progress was a little stilted over the summer period for various reasons, but work continues at whatever pace it can. Having several pieces simultaneously in play, and allowing numerous layered narratives to accumulate organically through possibly extended periods of reflection, actually feel like not altogether regrettable parts of the process right now.

I think I am moderately pleased with the way this one seems to tug at several possible threads of an increasingly tangled rhizome, whilst establishing a degree of stratified formal 'coherence' at the same time. Any attempt to provide a simplistic explanation feels harder than ever at this point, but maybe that's no bad thing either.

Perhaps the following quotations can supply some tentative clues instead...

"K. began to take notice. So the castle had appointed him land surveyor. On the one hand this was to his disadvantage, since it showed they knew all they needed to know about him up at the castle, had weighed up the balance of forces, and were entering the fray with a smile. But on the other hand it was also to his advantage, because it showed, he felt, that they underestimated him and that he was going to have more freedom than he might have hoped for at the outset. And if they thought that with his intellectually no doubt superior recognition of his land surveyorship they could keep him in a perfect state of fright, then they were wrong, it sent a little shiver down his spine, that was all." [1.]

"If I had not been so determined to set seriously to work, I might have made an effort to start at once. But given that my resolve was unbreakable, given that within twenty-four hours, inside the empty frame of tomorrow where everything fitted so perfectly because it was not today, my best intentions would easily take material shape, it was really preferable not to think of beginning things on an evening when I was not quite ready - and of course the following days were to be no better suited to beginning things.

Unfortunately, tomorrow turned out not to be that broad, bright, outward-looking day that I had feverishly looked forward to. When it ended, my idleness and hard struggle against my inner obstacles had just lasted for another twenty-four hours. After a few days, when my projects had still not come to anything, when some of my hope that they would come to something had faded, and with some of it some of the courage I required in order to subordinate everything to my coming achievement, I went back to staying up late, as I now lacked my incentive (the certain knowledge that the great work would be begun by the following morning) to go to bed early on any given evening." [2.]

"There are natures purely contemplative, completely unsuited for action, who nevertheless, under mysterious unknown impulses, act sometimes with a rapidity of which they would suppose themselves incapable.

"Those for instance who, afraid their concierge may have bad news for them, pace an hour timorously before daring to go in; those who hold letters for two weeks before opening them, or wait six months to take some step that has been immediately necessary for a year already - but sometimes abruptly feel precipitated into action by an irresistible force, like an arrow leaving the bow. Moralists and doctors, who claim to know everything, fail to explain from whence so sudden a mad energy comes to these lazy, voluptuous souls and why, incapable of the simplest and most necessary things, they find at certain moments a spurt of first class courage to execute the most absurd and even most dangerous actions." [3.]

[1.]: Franz Kafka, 'The Castle' (Trans. J. Underwood), London, Penguin, 1997/1926

[2.]: Marcel Proust, 'In Search of Lost Time, Volume 2: In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower' (Trans. James Grieve), London, Penguin, 2002/1919

[3.]: Charles Baudelaire, 'The Bad Glazier' (Trans. Keith Waldrop), From 'Paris Spleen', Middletown, CT, Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2009/1869.