the desert

2011, The Desert, 120cm x 60cm, mixed media on plasterboard.

I was walking in a desert where I passed many people, possibly nomads like myself but I couldn’t be sure. I also recall some tall figures stood motionless, wearing large masks like that of a native tribe, perhaps holding spears as well. They did not appear aggressive to me despite looking intimidating, and it was unclear what they were doing in this place – their endeavours as shrouded as my own. I could see a slight hilly incline bearing to my right in the direction I was heading. It was night and the desert appeared to be of a circular or semi-circular shape with red-brown coloured sand. While walking, my attention became drawn towards a strange symbol etched in the ground, the appearance of which I can only vaguely recall but it was unmistakably there. Somehow, whether through being told or by intuition, I came to know that this was a mark of the prophet Mohammed and it seemed to reveal that Islam held the highest knowledge of God. The desert had a perimeter, which before times (that is, before such knowledge existed), one could pass through to other lands easily (and back again), but once knowledge of God had been attained, the perimeter became like a kind of force-field, which made it all but impossible to leave the desert.