LA MAGNITUD DE UNA OBSESIÓN

Fotografías, pinturas, escritos, arte. El arte revolotea en una memoria repleta, no le fue enviado, el arte simplemente se topó con él. Las imágenes quizá simplemente le llegaron; la memoria es una bestia caprichosa a la caza de renacimiento en los titánicos lapsos entre la intención artística y su expresión y la comprensión de la magnitud de una obsesión. El taburete del artista permanece abandonado, y sobre él la ánfora de Pandora. La cama de Pandora está vacía desde hace mucho tiempo, ni siquiera un mísero colchón enmohecido descansa sobre su oxidado armazón. No es la Pandora mundana la que marchita a este hombre, más bien es el hombre el que marchita este mundo, el hombre se rompe en el tinnitus absoluto de la eternidad, oscilando entre el enfoque y el desenfoque como veleros de origami esparcidos en un océano de olas de cartón.

En el tinnitus absoluto de la eternidad, incluso dentro de otro charco de momentos estancados, una libélula bate sus alas a hurtadillas. Los insectos, se dice, se sienten atraídos por la luz, el hombre, por la noche, pues los espacios a los que más se nos enseña a temer son los espacios que más nos fascinan. La arrugada mano se aferra a su fláccido vientre, la artrítica mano se aferra a una memoria que se escapa, pero el sabio es un artista y encuentra una reconciliación afable en la obsesión. Está familiarizado con el Efecto de la Libélula. A cámara lenta bate las alas y los dulces aleteos alimentan un magnífico temor de la titánica magnitud de una obsesión. Esto, esto es el olvido. Entonces la libélula se esfuma. El arte se esfuma. El olvido, el común de los mortales tambaleándose en este punto crítico, todas las obligaciones de estos débiles seres delegadas, bien podrían suplicar por sus almas (como si las almas fueran algo más que una mera obsesión) para que fueran salvadas, pero no tienen almas que salvar, perdidas éstas desde hace tiempo por miedo a la magnitud de una obsesión.

Todo ha desaparecido, pero el arte, la vida, la vida se ha salvado por la magnitud de una obsesión y es recreada, incluso en el último momento, en el presente, en un molesto homenaje, algunos episodios ausentes, algunos obsesivos, difíciles de reconocer, oscilando entre el enfoque y el desenfoque como veleros de origami en un océano de olas de cartón.

“LA MAGNITUD DE UNA OBSESIÓN”, Pintura  acrílica, 90 x 125cms (Noviembre 2013) © DAVID F. BRANDON, 2013

THE SCALE OF AN OBSESSION

Mud on his boots, over the setting autumn horizon, deep into winter, aches on his way to an as yet empty tomb, the foolish old sage. His wines are spilt, his garments stained in homage to imaginings lived fervently. The chorus line, they doff their satin top hats from a rusted stage. Rare synaptic activity agitates a brief recollection of an epoch in which the rover still had use of his capacity to caress an image, to focus and compose and create some ghost of splendour to regale Pandora herself with. Pandora! Her bed is empty, way back there, not even a mouldy mattress upon the rusting iron bedstead.

Photographs, paintings writings, art, art floats about in a crowded memory, it was not sent to him; he simply came upon it. Images, perhaps they came to him; memory is such a fickle beast on the prowl for renaissance in the titanic lapses between artistic intention and its expression and the comprehension of the scale of an obsession. The artist’s stool sits abandoned, and sat upon it, Pandora’s amphora. Her bed is empty, way back there, not even a mouldy mattress rests upon the rusting iron bedstead. It is not the worldly Pandora that withers this man, but man who withers this world, man is broken in the absolute tinnitus of eternity, bobbing in and out of focus rather like origami sailing boats scattered on an ocean of cardboard waves.

In the absolute tinnitus of eternity, within yet another pool of stagnant moments, a dragonfly beats its wings stealthily. Insects, it is said, are drawn to the light, man, to the night, for the space we are most taught to fear is the space that forever fascinates. His wrinkled hand clutches at his sagging stomach, his arthritic hand clutches at a waning reminiscence, but the sage is an artist and finds fond reconciliation in obsession. He is familiar with The Dragonfly Effect. In slow motion beat her wings and the sweet beats fuel a magnificent dread of the titanic scale of an obsession. This, this is oblivion. Then she is gone. Art is gone. Oblivion, lesser mortals, tottering on this cusped, all obligation to the puny self they have harboured delegated, might well plead for their souls (as if souls were anything other than just another obsession) to be saved but have no souls to be saved since long lost are they for fear of this scale of an obsession.

Morse code pinches a coda in a flurry of futile activity as the sinking rust bucket is swallowed up by the icy Atlantic Ocean, SOS, SOS, SOS….Oblivion in the absolute tinnitus of eternity. Pandora, contrary to classical belief, never unstopped her amphora that second time, SOS, SOS….Black cats on the satin greaseway grin down on them from on high. The chorus line, they doff their satin top hats from a rusted stage. The bats, receiving no echoes, fall, as thick black rainstorms from midnight skies, SOS, SOS…. This dragonfly lives to flutter briefly again, for she has learnt, with surreptitious help, to be stealthy. A flash of metallic midnight blue and green blazes into the sun and death is revealed, sagely, to the living sage, to the bluebottle fly, to be merely the end of an obsession bobbing in and out of focus rather like a lone origami sailing boat on a sea of cardboard waves.

I gaze, I take notes, I doodle. She did write, often, in this very place, in this very place did drop her pencil, doodles still, someplace else. A pencil rolls off the edge of a Formica topped table and tumbles to the floor, but not a sound does it make, not a single tick tack pick tick sound as of a pencil coming to rest on a hard tiled surface. Pandora’s fingerprints did never grace this pencil’s shiny surface, only mine, for she is gone, long gone and memory has forgotten the sound of that fall, pick, tick tack, in the absolute tinnitus of eternity. Yet again I pick up my pencil and my pencil again writes the same old thing again and again and again….

It has all gone, but art, life, is saved by the scale of an obsession and it is recreated, even in the ultimate moment, in the present, in fastidious memorial, some episodes missing, some obsessed out of all recognition, bobbing in and out of focus rather like origami sailing boats on an ocean of cardboard waves.

Detail of the painting illustrating this piece, “THE SCALE OF AN OBSESSION” © David F. Brandon 2013