Waters and The Wild
Nicki Heenan
13th August at 17:30 – 3rd September 2019
Artist Statement
An exhibition of paintings reflecting on the poems of WB Yeats in the relationship between colour, texture and word.
Subtle references and direct naming of colours in WB Yeats work has a synaesthetic response to word and colour. I am synaesthetic towards colour and music so it was after spending much time delving into the depths of Yeats writings that I started to respond to this connection between word and colour. In fact not only to his sense of word and colour but also to sensory textures and sounds. Sometimes you can almost taste the words on your lips.
The paintings and words in this exhibition ‘Waters and the Wild’ inspire each other so revealing a deeper truth to our understanding of the metaphor of life which goes beyond description to becoming symbolic. There is a trio of elements of sound, colour and form which are integral parts of both poetry and painting and this also applies to music. Certainly some of these feelings arise more easily in either the early morning or twilight hours as we switch off to the buzz of the day to engage with the mysticism that is resplendent in dimmed not fully visible light.
Many of the paintings here in this show are from positions of low view point or a far distance where we are searching to make out the truth and seeking to identify with it. So it is, as when entering a darkened room that our senses must be given time to accustom to the new environment, looking at paintings and ‘reading’ them also requires time to see and absorb. The titles of the paintings in this exhibition are all drawn from words found in Yeats poems with a favourite quote being: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”.