The Rapture of the Archive
For me this is the moment of human connection with the past – a dizzying flash of recognition that something in my life is the same as another human being long dead. My act of creating in drawing is an echo of the same act performed by another person in the past. I have previously felt this connection when looking at paintings by my artist heroes: Rembrandt, Cézanne, Hopper and others. Their work speaks of the act of painting and I can tell where they were standing – the position they were looking from. These experiences require further reflection.
Sinead in Structure 10 enjoys the methodical diagnosis that ultimately reveals the human activity in the space. At the Ness of Brodgar, it really is about being human and seeing that humanity revealed by the archaeology.
Not all the archaeologist supervisors are able to come back for every digging season. So this year Structure 12 remains covered and Jim’s plaster rabbit waits forlornly for his return.
Trench T has changed hands again this year and I’m looking forward to a conversation with this year’s supervisor next week. Meanwhile I have painted the now enlarged and complicated trench from the same viewpoint as 2016.
