It seems I have to apologise once again for yet another extended absence, which has generally blurred into the previous absence. I am sorry to have not updated or tended this blog nearly as often as I would have liked over the past 18 months. This is for several reasons, most notably an ongoing mural project called PAINT UP WITH KAMAMMA in the township of Melkhoutfontein, Western Cape, South Africa, but also the writing of yet another book called ‘They Shimmer Within’ which is planned to be released later this year.
It’s time for a reboot. Of late this blog wandered away somewhat from its original brief of bringing ancient artforms and mythology into modern attention and visionary inspiration. I am also mindful that the serialisation of ‘On Vision and Being Human’ lost some people due to its abstract complexity, so I will not be continuing the serialisation of that book here. Interested readers can either consult the complete book on Google Books here, or get a copy of it from Amazon or Lulu Books here.
The reboot of this blog, then, will return us to the original brief, and happily I have a bit more time for the foreseeable future. I intend to restart the blog with three principal strands. Firstly, in the intervening time I have had the great pleasure of visiting some Bushman rock art sites in South Africa, some of which were pretty special and quite remarkable in their imagery. So I will be writing some reports about those to post here, in the hope that readers will become initiated into what I consider one of the finest but least well-known art traditions of the world.
The second strand will be chapter extracts from my recent book Liminal Contact, which uses archaic imagery, cognitive anthropology and the experiences of modern painters to robustly challenge the Modernist fantasy of the death of painting, and eradicate that strange dogma once and for all. Some interesting case studies of Palaeolithic cave art, the murals of Çatal Hüyük, and Bushman rock art images illustrate how this challenge is possible, and modified forms of these chapters will be shared here.
Finally, I would like to start serialising another book of mine, one from a long time ago and much less abstract and theoretical than ‘On Vision…’ This is ELEUSIS, an artistic, mythological and anthropological exploration into the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In this little book from 2012, I take a very different, much more holistic perspective from the psychedelic theorist or the theological occultist. It should be an interesting journey, but particularly interested readers can consult this book on Google Books as well.
Once again, apologies to those who had become regular readers and were disappointed by the lack of output – I hope that the forthcoming strands of Archaic Visionary inspiration will make up for recent absences!
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