HOXTON SUITE

Bryan Illsley & Mel Gooding

impossible to say just what I mean not of the shadow that falls but of that which envelops the senses like a shade the darkness variable that is not thrown answering to form in light but of itself is a phenomenon like the shadow in the mind the cloud that weighs in the dark backward of the cranium that obscures the clearer thought that struggles for light in the frontal lobes that at the same time darkens feeling also like ink or a stain a turbulence inchoate the confusion of which we hope will resolve itself - please! - into sweet form or harmony or an ending at least at last a silence like that of before dawn in the grey streets after drink has been taken and forgotten words clamoured in the electric light of noisy rooms the darkling din of warehouse bars hard the shining stones of Hoxton pavements hard and black the windows of Shoreditch after a gusty night-time nighttown shower beat on broken blinds and chimney pots and cleared the gutters to sweeten the dawn if only all was as clear and brilliant as these runnel streams black catching street lamplight these hard edged buildings dark against the pallor still stand we alone fly past all things fugitive as the wind and all things conspire to keep silent about us half out of shame perhaps half as unutterable hope yes! love must be at least a shadowing presence in these unlovely streets love hoped for lost or forgotten always not quite in reach what ever it may be a resolution that becomes at once again even before dawn breaks a turbulence in beating hearts in upstairs rooms on Commercial Street bleak Kingsland Road and up Stoke Newington High Street a turn or two I’ll walk about to ease my beating mind and in the first light trace the scratched graffiti scribble and find no conclusion to its dark chaotic no sweet chord there and yet and yet a kind of music the score of an unquiet soul perhaps an image for a troubled mind a mark incised turning and twisting on a heart in a grave cloud

Boxed set of 12 etchings by Bryan Illsley, with two text pieces by Mel Gooding

Edition size: 10

Size: image 23cm x 20cm; paper 48cm x 37cm

Price: £1300