The clarity of memories are washed by years of forgetting, until all that is left are the mottled remains of imagery which linger in the temporal lobe.
The ability of memoires to change and to metamorphose hinge on their inability to be real. We recall events from our past, telling stories about who we used to be or what we wished we could have been. Events are often exaggerated, toned down or changed entirely. We begin to create a personal mythology about our past. This metamorphosis of events is what we call storytelling, it is the way in which we communicate fear, happiness, shame, love and all human experience.
Creating my own mythology and building a narrative around that mythology has become an important part of my practice. This started with an intense interest in all things childhood, and interest which continues. Towards the beginning of the MFA course I was employed in a nursery school and was living, as a property guardian, within an old nursery school. This impregnated my mind and body with all things childhood, ‘What are little boys made of?’ became a sort of mantra for me. I used it as a title for many of my works. This exploration of childhood was at once exciting and troubling and this was reflected in the work I was producing, I think there was an unease about my work at this time, which was noticed by others during group crits and tutorials.
The idea of the reverie became of interest to me after reading Gaston Bachelard’s The Poets Of Reverie, childhood, Language and the Cosmos. I was particularly interested in the chapter Reveries toward childhood, in it Bachelard explores the possibilities of the childhood reverie as a boundless site of exploration which if accessed can give light to a kind of poetico-analysis. Within my work this takes the form of narratives and poems which delve into my own reveries as a child and as an adult, they position themselves within a liminal space of dreaming, history and legend/mythology. They are at once truth and fantasy.
In this reverie-Text, Benjamin Martin 2017
In this reverie
There is sunshine pouring through branches
And a boy waiting in the hide
Subdued with the smell of farmland
In this reverie
There is a slow passage of time
And a boy playing at being a man
Passive with sweaty palms
In this reverie
There is an air riffle sat neatly between thighs
And a boy with his gaze fixed, no not fixed
Calmed with the call of a calf to its mother
In this reverie
There is an apple ready for eating
And a boy poised to leap
Anxious with noises from the woods behind
In this reverie
There is a breeze that flickers the leaves in the spinney
And a boy resting his back against an oak
Placated with the sound of the farm at work
In this reverie
There is a rabbit that bounces across the foreground
And a boy whose heart flickers with delight
Soothed with little clouds that remove the heat
In this reverie
There is a handful of steel bullets nested in a pocket
And a boy who watches for signs of life
Apprehensive with the smell of a distant fire
In this reverie
There is a flock of pigeons that pass in the background
And a boy who wishes he had moved his spot
Tentative with twitching sparrows who confuse the gaze
In this reverie
There is a distant voice calling
And a boy who remembers himself
Eager to please with dirty finger nails
In this reverie
There is a quickening of time
And a boy whose heart begins to race
Traversed with a black bird swinging on its axis
In this reverie
There is weapon shunted between a child’s hands
And a boy whose gaze is fixed, yes fixed
Soothed with the sensation of air
In this reverie
There is an apple bitten
And a boy salivating
Nervous with the scent of rotting earth
In this reverie
There is a black bird perched upon the branch
And a boy frozen in time
Patient with heads hanging
In this reverie
There is a barrel of metal pointed
And a boy sharpened by his senses
Frightful with the event of death approaching
In this reverie
There is one shot taken
And a boy who has encroached upon another life
Mindful with eyes lowered
In this reverie
There is a silence that ripples through
And a boy winded
Hushed with morbid energy
In this reverie
There is a body strewn on a grassy bed
And a boy in awe of his tranquillity
Enthused with shaking limbs
In this reverie
There is a shift in the body
And a boy whose mind is altered
Transfigured with the ability to be renewed
What are little boys made of?- Performance, Benjamin Martin, 2017
Exploration of Nijinsky/Mythology
Synapses Burst- Painting, Benjamin Martin, 2017
In This reverie- Animation, Benjamin Martin, 2017
