TPC1.3

#Episodes

Episode 1.3

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Introduction

Welcome to The Phosphene Catalogue no. #15003
We see light where others see only darkness.

We hope the reader is weathering the cold snap here in London this week.
The artwork in our storerooms is quite safe from the snow, under the lowest basements and vaults of London's oldest and most reliable buildings.

Both The Woolf Room and The Bell Room are available this week for viewings, interested readers may make an appointment with reception, dial our number and ask for Morwenna.

Morwenna: You're answering the phone too?! You do everything! You're always here before me in the morning, and I don't think I've ever seen you leave! You work too hard, love!

Those policemen wanted to interview me again about some "irregularities" in their investigation into the circumstances of Edie's death.

I told them, truthfully, that I'd never visited Nelson Cartwright's home in that awful hostel in Lambeth that Edie was found in, I'm not friendly towards him, knowing what he was supplying her, and she and I had grown apart recently.
It seemed that Heather Baldwin is no longer a suspect, they knew about her relationship with Edie of course, but Heather was at her family home, and had been for months.
I don't know what you said to the officers to make them leave so quickly, but thank you for that!
You'll have to tell me your secret one day...

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Side A: Tapestry

Lot No. 4775 . "The Oneironauts", Agata (Wójcik. 1970. Contemporary tapestry on linen.

Presented for viewing this week in The Bell Room, this highly detailed tapestry hangs 6 and a half feet high, and is 6 and a half feet wide.

It is always interesting to see a master work in a medium that one is not versed in. The lack of understanding of the technique can prove over or underwhelming.
It is all too easy to not appreciate something you cannot conceive of, just as it is to imagine complexities that, upon trying out the medium for the first time for yourself, do not manifest.

The composition superficially resembles the typical middle-ages scene of a court feast. Important aristocrats sit at a table with the king in the centre, each duke, prince, or baron surrounded by chalices, swords, or other heraldry, so we may know whom they are.

The artist had certainly set out to copy or perhaps pastiche the designs of tapestries used by kings of of times gone by.
The unique portability of tapestry allowed them to be carried by monarchs and nobles as they visited each other's houses and castles.
A grand environment, rich with art, history, but also status, could be re-built wherever the 'terribly important' person went.

Experimentation with new raw materials in contemporary tapestry is common, inspired by the resurgence of interest after the War, and the upheaval of global fabric supply chains.

The scene is certainly of a feast or dinner, though much less grand than that of a castle or court.

It is, perhaps, a large, wealthy, domestic setting, red carpet on the floor, wallpaper on the walls, and simple, but silver, cutlery on the table.

Stepping closer, I see that the cutlery is embroidered with silver thread, glinting delicately in the diffuse light of The Bell Room.
It was common in medieval times to weave precious metals, gold or silver, into especially grand tapestries, further increasing the status of the owner.

The thin silver filament woven into this cloth is used very sparingly.
Silver is more affordable these days, but silver is still silver.

The figures around the long dining table are strangely lopsided, or slumped - a detail that doesn't quite come across when viewing from afar.
On closer inspection, they all appear to be asleep!
There has been some grand feast, and the guests are all napping after dinner.

Reader, I am drowsy merely looking at this piece.
The warm colours coupled with the subject matter do remind one that it might be time for a rest!

But there is more than that.

The composition is very bottom-heavy, as though only the lower third of the fabric were designed to be viewed:
The long table stretches from edge to edge, surrounded by the napping guests.
Above them appears to be, at first viewing, a great deal of empty space, the high ceilings of the room, and at the very top, glimpses of rafters in the darkened corners.

But as I examine it closer, I see a glint of silver in that empty space.
There is more, much more, silver thread woven into the space above the sleeping diners.

No sharp edges of shapes are visible, the artist has woven the lines of silver in and out of the fabric, causing large gaps between the different parts of the lines.
This is a very wasteful technique, leaving much of the silver BEHIND the tapestry, rather than in front of it.

But perhaps the silver patterns have been woven just so, for an effect other than mere decoration.

The swirling, billowing smoke that the silver highlights, gives an impression of a cloud hovering over the sleepers, but there is more:

A single, thin, line of silver snakes out of the cloud down to each of the sleepers, coiling around their heads and necks, and entering through the nose.

A detail stood out to me: The silver cutlery on the table is joined by silver goblets at each place.
The design is plain, but for this mark, again, of a ship with black sails.
Is this a club, or a secret organisation?
Then why are they all sleeping?

The scene is perhaps more abstract than I initially thought it to be. I cannot perfectly interpret what is happening, Reader, you must see it for yourself.

I wonder: are the sleepers making the cloud, or does the cloud make the sleepers?

I am, however, left with the impression that we are presenting this piece incorrectly.
The tapestry is six and a half feet square.

I don't believe it was made to be hung on a wall.
It was made to be thrown across a bed.

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Intermission

Tris to read:

Side B: Modern Art

Lot No. 2156. "Lobby Art 37", Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, 1972. A large abstract acrylic painting behind perspex, framed in plastic.

I didn't understand why this piece was admitted to our collection, on first impression.
It is a 10' square of blue paint, on an 11' square canvas.

It's just... blue.
If I were to guess, I would say 'Cerulean Blue' from any budget acrylic set of paints, available in any university paint shop around the world.
Complex colours are not always the point with deeply functional art such as this, I suppose?

The piece would have been hung in the large foyer of an office building, council office, or bank.
Likely the latter in this case, as our client had saved it from a skip outside one of the City's "valuable financial institutions".

Reader, I will be honest, I do not care much for this piece.
I struggle to call it artwork, though I know strictly it is, the struggle itself perhaps proving it, frustratingly.

The unknown artist did not even coat or prime the medium before painting the blue square, it's rendered directly onto the raw canvas.

A single colour was used across the entirety of the work, Blue, and if I am any judge, the size of the square was decided by how much paint there is in a tube.
Good for economy, I suppose, not exactly for artistic intent.
Despite the grand size of this piece, I imagine it would have cost less than 1 pound to produce.
This is no. 36 out of a run of perhaps a hundred.

I wonder how much each one sold for?

The reader will be quite familiar with the medium.
Acrylic is a wildly versatile tool, it dries quickly for ease of layering, is easily modifiable with one's favourite pigments and additions, and though it may be diluted simply with water when it dries it becomes waterproof.
Depending on the treatment, the final piece can resemble a watercolour, an oil painting or something quite, quite different.

On closer inspection, I believe what I am looking at is quite, quite different.

I stood in front of the painting in our Whitechapel showroom, as interested buyers are welcome to do by prior appointment.
We must insist on appointments, we do not allow walk-ins from the general public.
The nature of The Catalogue's art can be... disquieting for those not used to the supernatural.

The 11' canvas is hung in our largest gallery, The Woolf Room, under sympathetic lighting, specially chosen for this work.
Of course, selecting sympathetic lighting involves considering the intent of the artist:
Size, colour and subject are often selected with a venue in mind.
Sometimes the artist assumes a neutrally-lit gallery, either though visions of grandeur, or simply a lack of imagination, but specialist commissions can be tailored to the environment.
The artist may wish to visit the patron's home, or location where the work is to be displayed, examining the angle and duration of daylight, the colours in the room, and even the architecture and feeling of the house itself.

We chose white neon strip lights to display this painting, as cheap, harsh office lighting would have been in the artist's mind as they made this set of one hundred.
This kind of light is uninspiring, but practical.
The blue-white light of a flickering neon tube has no warm tones, and is chosen to keep a workforce of clerks awake and sharp, completely the opposite to how we light our homes, for comfort and warmth.

As artists, we often find ourselves at the crossroads of the Natural Sciences.
Michelangelo's statue of David (made when the artist was younger than I, I note), is a clear example:
The Renaissance Master knew how to sculpt many of the body's veins and ligaments centuries before doctors understood their functions or even existence!

The artist must hone their mechanical craft, certainly, the tools and understanding of colour must all be there.

But the master understands the human component, both in their art, and in the eye of the beholder, the first to imitate, the second to manipulate.

There are light scrapes in the surface of the blue acrylic on this work.
Invisible to the casual viewer who might pass by this piece every day on their way to and from their office.

The canvas is so large that a comfortable viewing distance is perhaps 30' away - this is why we chose The Woolf Room to present this work.

(Personally reader, when viewing my own work, I stand as far back as required so as not to see the mistakes.)

The largest of the scrapes are circular.
Starting at the outer edge, dozens perhaps hundreds of concentric circles have been scraped into the partially dry acrylic, like a bullseye.

This technique is galled grattage, first used by early-20th century surrealists, and gives an earnest sense of movement to the work.

But here...

As I stepped closer, the concentric circles seemed to move and dance, swirling like a whirlpool of blue water.
There is no spiralling effect, the circles do not overlap, and inner circles are not always faster in their movement than the outer.
The whole painting twists around the centre point, reminding me of video footage I have seen, of the faithful walking anticlockwise seven times at the final stage of their pilgrimage to Mecca.

Lean close, reader, as you view this subversive corporate art for yourself in our showroom, do you see the delicate dancing sigils hiding between the circles?

Morwenna, can you keep a secret?
Don't laugh: When I first realised there was tiny writing in the circles, I squinted at it really closely, but I got lost in this new minute detail and became dizzy and stumbled to the floor!
PLEASE don't tell anyone, I'd be mortified!
Anyway, back to my description.

The dancing shapes were symbols, or characters, or perhaps hieroglyphics? Our resident historian, Warrick Blackwood, has not been able to match them with any writing from any known language, nor does it resemble any undeciphered work, such as the writing in the Voynich Manuscript.

Whatever the language is, the effect of the circles and sigils seem to exert a calming, yet focusing, effect on the viewer.
(I caution you, reader, to not observe the patterns too closely, you may trust me on that!)

Warrick would not be drawn in to the conversation I wished to have, complaining about corporate art, deriding it as cheap tricks only good for making some quick money.

Viewing it from a reasonable distance, the swirling circles and sigils once again invisible to the naked eye, I found myself in a peaceful, but alert state.
I was visited by the thought that there really was quite a lot of intake paperwork for the new arrivals that I should finish before the end of the day.
I detest doing this paperwork usually, but all jobs have parts we like more and parts we like less, I suppose?

And so I walked back to the Curator's office, and found myself having finished the forms at my desk, 6 hours later, well after everyone else had left the building for the day!

My in-tray was empty, all the new filing was done.

I woke as though from a daze.
Upon realising what had happened, I returned to Lobby Art 37, furious at the work it had, perhaps, inspired me to do.

It is where I stand now.

A moment ago, I unhooked the painting, and set it down on the thick dark red carpet of The Woolf Room's windowless gallery.
I was less gentle than I might have been, but the frame is modern, and the carpet soft.

I have done something I knew I shouldn't have done, Morwenna, I unclipped the plastic frame holding the perspex to the front of the painting.
I wanted to find an artist's mark that might have been covered by the thin frame.
I NEEDED a NAME to be furious with!
Whoever this "productivity sorcerer" is, they have influenced my life personally, without my consent, and not in a way I am altogether happy with.

The perspex sheet lifted off cleanly, only requiring a gentle tap to release the thicker areas of acrylic that had stuck to it.

I haven't yet damaged the work, though I have found something under the frame that is making me re-think that decision.

The painting IS signed!

Signed by someone I know.

Edie's signature is here!

She has never mentioned making corporate art, indeed, would be the first to join my complaints about artists "selling out" when they do so.

But her name is HERE, printed clearly, alongside a black inked symbol I also recognise.

The same symbol printed under the wooden base of the granite statue, "Cunning Woman", and in the tapestry of sleepers.

A mark of a ship with black sails.

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CREDITS

The Phosphene Catalogue is a NAMTAO production.

The voice of Jude Francis-sharp is Wolfie Thorns,
The show is written and produced by me, Tris Oaten, and all the music can be found at my website http://namtao.com.

Say hi on Mastodon @phosphenecatalogue@SOMEWHERE, and check our website, https://phosphenecatalogue.com for our merch store and patreon.

Thank you so much for listening,
See you next time.