Applying for exhibitions can be tricky. It is never entirely clear how the gallery wants you to present yourself. There are two tracks you can follow–the impersonal and the personal. Either they expect me to describe my work as if some detached and independent observer were encountering it, and the comment is the subject of some expert reflection. Alternatively, I am expected to speak for myself, and appear before the reader as an immediate and accessible person.
Route 1 begins along the line: “The work of John Allcock has followed two quite distinct lines of development.” Route 2 might begin: “I took early retirement from an academic career in 2001 in order to fulfil a lifetime ambition to paint.” The trouble is, I am never sure, unless I take the trouble to enquire, what they are looking for, and what they expect to be the frame of mind of a typical visitor to their gallery. Normally I would ask for their advice and preference.
It is a weird experience, though, because I come across as two different people, only slightly related to each other. Many years ago I was enthusiastic about the writing of John Wyndham. In several of his stories the narrator encounters his own self which has followed a different life trajectory as a consequence of some remarkable event. I can’t help wondering whether the two John Allcock’s will ever meet, and what it is that would make of each other’s art.