Well: I suppose I begin at the beginning. I’ve just got back from a two-week tour of my old stamping ground in the Balkans (Zagreb, Belgrade, Skopje). We’ve been talking about the possibility of doing this for several years. I think the emotional obstacles to this were greater than the practical ones. In any case, I was fully committed to my new life as an artist and didn’t want to be dragged back into my old life as an “expert” on Yugoslavia.
The trip was, in the event, wonderful–probably more of that anon. It has certainly left me thinking. I spent two weeks travelling with absolutely no desire to turn any of those experiences into “art”, despite their (sometimes intense) emotional freight. The contrast has been remarkable with my response to the deaths of family members, which had to be expressed, at least partially, in painting or drawing. (These were shown in my exhibition in the Unit 9 gallery at South Square last year, entitled In Passing.)
I am left wondering what is the route by which emotion becomes translated into art, and how some emotions refuse to offer themselves in visual form.