AETHER/AWE

Excerpts from a let­ter by Mike Parr

“ÆTHER / AWE brings togeth­er three major tran­si­tions in my work of the last thir­ty years.

The over­print­ed text has been extract­ed from the Wall Def­i­n­i­tion of 1971. This 254 page piece begins with a def­i­n­i­tion of the word ​“wall” con­tin­u­ing with def­i­n­i­tions of all the words in the first def­i­n­i­tion, to make a ​“wall of words.”

In cru­cial respects this 1971 con­cep­tu­al work antic­i­pates the Self Por­trait Project, which also par­o­dies the notion of iden­ti­ty via an end­less process of re-representation.

The sec­ond piv­otal com­po­nent of ÆTHER / AWE dates from 1981. The sec­ond year of the 1980’s marks the begin­ning of my attempt at self portraiture.

These draw­ings are all strange­ly ana­lyt­i­cal and incom­pe­tent at the same time and their ​“expres­sion­ism”, which is inad­ver­tent, is made more so by being seen through my ​“mother’s glassware”.

The remain­ing images of ÆTHER / AWE rough­ly date to 2001. I think of them as rem­nants of the Self Por­trait Project. Wisps of mir­ror images, touch­es of water colour, bits of writ­ing and a per­va­sive feel­ing of empti­ness. A tremen­dous amount of work went into these images. Many screens were used and very often the pig­ment was dilut­ed to near invisibility.”