Ní OBOIR GAN DUA í AN DAMHAS
It starts in childhood, the search for structure, the constant
delineation of meaning. First we see shapes in the scudding clouds, --- here
a teddybear, and look, there's a hump-back-whale or maybe it's a
dromedary if you look at it backwards. A wisp of a mermaid or is it
perhaps a fiery dragon emerges from the bottom of the wood panel
against which we are pressing our noses. Appear momentarily and
disappearing again. It is no use telling this to others. “Ah go on away to
Hell out of it”, they would only say “It is only a figment of your
imagination”. After all, wood is wood and clouds are clouds
and........... we know, we know. And yet....
Hence the constant magic of the 'trompe d'oeil', where are young woman in
an ornate hat suddenly becomes a leering scull and two profiles recede
for while the space between them become a candlestick. Now you see it, now
you don't. This is the essence of Helen Comerford's work. We have a
delving into the dark chasm of their 'yin', into the inner nothingness
where dwells the dark Mother of poetry who is churning churning bridges
burning. The structures which emerge are as eminently biological as are
we ourselves, made from the four elements of earth, fire, air and water
in the dance of the Wu Li masters, the double spiralling of the DNA helix
within us.
To evoke but not describe, that is the art. See here what you will. An
earth-falling angel becomes an elongated butterfly. What one minute seems
a cascade of water may the next hold an imitation of lips. This is not
the chestnut tree you see before you but the space with the tree once
stood. So a swirling cloud chamber invites the scientist to discover the
movements of particles so small he will never see and can only imagine.
Later on, to his delight, they prove true to his imaginings.
We dream the world or is it that the worlds dreams us?
Caban tSile
SAMHAIN 1989
