On the Edge of a Continent

Conceptual text for Home-Platform exhibition at Glasgow International.

It’s raining, lightly.

An offshore storm puts on a show while from a clifftop a man of superhero stature in a tight, white shirt watches in anguish through tousled Off-Black™ hair. On his thousand dollar watch the time is always 10:10 and he wonders which kind of fountain pen defines him.

We know this beach. Waves crash over waves and a thousand souls compete for screen time with the latest stunt by the wife of someone who’s name rings a bell. The one with the body. We know this beach. The old gods rage and the new ones have forgotten what they’re for.

Half a mile up the coast, in a private cove, a smiling young couple take endless photographs while the world looks on in envy at their unfiltered perfection. Their contentment is content on the edge of a continent.

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A dog catches a Frisbee in super slow-mo and droplets of salty sea-spray acquiesce into nanosecond life stories captured forever in the storm clouds that break on the horizon.

In the rain she poses with dry, dead eyes, her Medium Charcoal™ micro-shimmer affirms her her-ness by alluding to things that remind her of a way she might feel if ever she had taken the time to try.

In a Book Room Red™ landscape a distant bell chimes and in a tiny chapel front-row gods and goddesses regard a VIP catwalk show. The tint on the lips of the runway models picks out rib-thin strips of red earth visible through the chapel windows behind them.

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Against a backdrop of corrugated coastline, her lips are defined. She is our latest essence: Independent Thought.

The clouds disperse and the storm never happened. His shirt is crisp, with open chest and black tie, undone. Head bowed, he meets your gaze and clicks his fingers and as the beat comes in you’re dancing with him and over your shoulder he shares this perfection with the world.

In fifteen seconds you transcended your news feed and danced with those gods.

An empty ballroom. Open windows. Yards of fabric, in Manor House White™ and Elephant’s Breath™, billow and flutter and ripple and fade into silence.

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