There is something about Ted Hughe’s poetry which I would love to condense into a sticky paste and then vomit back out in visual form. The relationship ebtween literature and painting frustrates me. When someone expresses a certain quality so eloquentally in words the attempt to translate that into a visual equivalent leads to mindless image making nad illustration. I have no interest anymore in taking images from Hughes’ poetry and putting them into my work, as I did with the Crow like figure. The iamges are not what I am after, they are merely the narrative vehicles he uses to capture and convey the essence I admire. Taking the vessel which carries the meaning but pouring out said meaning is kind of ridiculous.

I think, this said, that its Hughes’ ability to capture the dark and underlying tragic themes of humanity with a brutal and cynical accuracy and a stunning wit that I love.

I think Daniel Richter maybe has this in his paintings.

 For your delight here is Ted Hughes’ ‘Crow’s Nerve Fails’ from his collection ‘The Crow’

Crow, feeling his brain slip,
Finds his every feather the fossil of a murder.Who murdered all these?
These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood
Till he is visibly black?How can he fly from his feathers?
And why have they homed on him?

Is he the archive of their accusations?
Or their ghostly purpose, their pining vengeance?
Or their unforgiven prisoner?

He cannot be forgiven.

His prison is the earth. Clothed in his conviction,
Trying to remember his crimes

Heavily he flies.

Ted Hughes