ALL THAT WHICH SINGS
As the image pulls me deep inside of it, a special kind of silence descends, trapping me in its dark spaces and channels of light; releasing its secrets as it carries me across surfaces and down through layers. And then that eternal struggle, as I try to pull back from its hold (its trance-inducing revelry, its devilry).
Eleanor Butt’s painting/drawing/making/moulding…
A hang.
A new formation.
An event.
Addition / Deletion.
Playfulness.
Surprise.
The decisions are precious (precise),
yet endlessly fallible—
Each image possesses a catalysing power so that even in the midst of a series/a grouping, the singular painting exists as a singular event concealed within a larger one. I start to think of each work as monad-like in its way. ‘Simple substances’ is how Leibniz described the monad in 1714: (i) The Monad…is nothing more but a simple substance that enters into composites—simple, that is, without parts. (ii) And there must be simple substances, since there are composites; for the composite is nothing more than a collection, or aggregate, of simples.”[1] Is this how we can identify a method, a discernible mode of practice across a body of work, this whole (completeness) as an elemental particle of a larger composite, which then enters into a greater whole (a universe perhaps).
Eleanor produces multiple works concurrently. A gesture from one painting could be the starting point for the next, or it may move onto a drawing, or a bronze casting. Intense moments of screaming, wrenching, and surprise, and then the pace softens and pointy-points of lightness rise up. Dips. Peaks. Vibrations… accompanying the work are distinct experiences of time (temp)—
temperament
temperature
temporary
contemporary…
And we get the impression that a new nervous system is being super-imposed over our own, subjecting it to frequent, minimal shocks and spasms. In this way, a lethargic and barren sensorium is forced to reawaken.[2]
These beautiful words were written by Robert Calasso about the 19th century poet, Charles Baudelaire. As soon as I read them, this perfect image, this wonderous syntax (feelings of inadequacy and envy for the writer), I was flipped straight into the affective experience of standing in front Eleanor’s paintings. And then there is that urge to see worldly references in painterly structures: can we escape that mysterious memetic drive that seems to infiltrate our ‘looking’? I was struggling to situate a nagging reference in one of Eleanor’s large paintings, yet unnamed. I was drawn to turbulent expanses of dark turquoise, streaks of bright white and muddy fields of brown. I was in a rough sea. But the analogy also felt ‘off’…
I saw (by pure chance) a similar reference; an arial image of a Basque sea that had the same palette as Eleanor’s painting. It was the opening to the TV series, Hondar ahoak [Mouths of Sand], and the first episode was titled, “Salt and Diesel”; the beauty of the sea corrupted by the world’s most notorious fuel.[3] It is the kind of sensible skirmish between beauty/not beauty that Eleanor plays with in her work, the way she dodges the sentimentality that can overpower some images.
In the middle of developing these thoughts, I asked Eleanor for the work’s title. It immobilised me at first — I’d make a soft green pillow for your head (2022).[4] The Basque thriller is based on a beautiful old seafaring tale that says if a person betrays the secrets of the sea, by repeating them on land, their mouth will fill with sand. I feel intensely the shame of the writer who tries to betray the speechlessness of the image. What hubris to try to enter into its secrets.
Dr Jan Bryant
September, 2022
[1] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, [1646–1715] The Monadology, 1714, (trans.) Robert Latta, 1898.
[2] Roberto Calasso (trans.) Alistair McEwen, La Folie Baudelaire (UK: Penguin Books, Random House, 2013) 18
[3] Hondar ahoak (2020) Basque, directors: Koldo Almandoz, Angel Aldarondo, cinematography by Javier Aguirre Erauso, 200 mins., Colour.
[4] Eleanor Butt, I make a soft green pillow for your head (2022), Oil and synthetic polymer on cotton, 168cm x 198cm, 2022