Clement Reeling I (detail)
Christopher Bucklow
Clement Reeling I (in the studio)
Christopher Bucklow
Clement Reeling I
His story
unfolds across the cool canvas.
Separated by oil and air,
my indifferent gaze scrapes at the surface,
of pastel, violet, earth and black.
Under and inside,
dissected figures move in and out;
a young girl with tousled hair and a man in a black suit.
She holds the knife.
I catch their fleeting shapes on my blind side,
like myths,
caught in an endless struggle.
Being and not being.
Leaning forward,
engulfed by the thick scent
of paint and spirit,
my eyes close.
The strokes of divine possibility are simple grooves under my fingertips,
like grainy truths.
There is no polite request,
when the web of tissue gathers between digits,
between fabric of body and canvas,
binding my decisions.
The world turned inside out.
Violet eyes flicker and open.
I watch others stare back at me,
so sure of their autonomy.
Why don’t they see my tendrils slip into them?
our hands bound to the knife
that cuts through the order of millennia.
