percival alexander

‘Life begins on the other side of despair.’ ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

My visual art has always leaned towards the sublime and formalist – be it Romanticism’s imaginative relationship with nature, Jungian ideas of the collective unconscious (notable in Abstract Expressionism), Kandinsky’s notion of the spiritual in art or Eastern philosophical musings about connectedness. Such themes continue to inform my work, but somewhere along the line I began writing and, for reasons unknown, the anger just poured out, often with the mouth of a sailor! I think I get that from my father who was a builder, for they tend to have a similar command of the King’s English. I then decided to harness such impotent rage and channel it which culminated in my first novel, Adrift in Amnesia, and book of poetry, The Cycle Diaries (samples below). Other pieces take the form of short stories, poems and sweary, bloggy diatribes that evolved largely from the paintings on plasterboard which I have also shared here. Among other things, I’m curious to explore notions of authenticity, and if such a thing is even possible, in an era of digital colonialism (I can’t think of a more striking example of the ‘they-self’ than social media!). I haven’t quite worked it out, but I’m sure there is a significant connection between the ache in my heart for joy and the frontier beyond my despair… how much of it is authentic, your guess is as good as mine.

adrift in amnesia (extracts)

adrift in amnesia: introduction to a daydreamer

adrift in amnesia, chapter one – aurea spiralis

adrift in amnesia, chapter two – chelmswood

adrift in amnesia, chapter three – reading, 1991

adrift in amnesia, chapter four – breakdown

adrift in amnesia, chapter five – molly’s dream

adrift in amnesia, chapter six – jacob and the wizard

adrift in amnesia, chapter seven – mysterious figures up ahead

adrift in amnesia, chapter eight – flight of the firekyma

adrift in amnesia, chapter nine – st. mary’s

the cycle diaries (extracts)