Gavin Maughfling
www.gavinmaughfling.co.uk
@gavinmaughfling
Statement:
We should crawl under the bracken …
… to spy on where the lovers lie entangled in the undergrowth, unaware of us as we pull back the branches. What is happening here? The words we name ourselves and others call us have changed; the parameters are morphing, as we build new alliances in order to create new understandings of what makes meaning, and how we can (re)construct queer lives. But the ways in which we make love, and the emotions that we used to experience before everything altered - the intense rapture, the inherited guilt - have these changed too? We have to carve out new and kinder ways to chase desire and to build our loves.
For in truth, it's the beginning of nothing
And nothing has changed
Outside this never-ending loop, body on body, love and sex, the world is changing in terrifying ways, through war and the pandemic and environmental collapse. In the surrounding darkness our search for personal happiness occupies a fragile space, and its depiction can seem a contestable pursuit.
But it’s always been like this. Queer desire has been passed down across generations, hidden in the bracken, mouth to mouth, image to subliminal image. Coded signals, inaudible to most, are, trusting good fortune, launched into the winds.
Now we must burn
All that we are
Rise together
Through these clouds
As on wings.
www.gavinmaughfling.co.uk
@gavinmaughfling
Statement:
We should crawl under the bracken …
… to spy on where the lovers lie entangled in the undergrowth, unaware of us as we pull back the branches. What is happening here? The words we name ourselves and others call us have changed; the parameters are morphing, as we build new alliances in order to create new understandings of what makes meaning, and how we can (re)construct queer lives. But the ways in which we make love, and the emotions that we used to experience before everything altered - the intense rapture, the inherited guilt - have these changed too? We have to carve out new and kinder ways to chase desire and to build our loves.
For in truth, it's the beginning of nothing
And nothing has changed
Outside this never-ending loop, body on body, love and sex, the world is changing in terrifying ways, through war and the pandemic and environmental collapse. In the surrounding darkness our search for personal happiness occupies a fragile space, and its depiction can seem a contestable pursuit.
But it’s always been like this. Queer desire has been passed down across generations, hidden in the bracken, mouth to mouth, image to subliminal image. Coded signals, inaudible to most, are, trusting good fortune, launched into the winds.
Now we must burn
All that we are
Rise together
Through these clouds
As on wings.
The Wall
107 x 138cm Oil on Canvas 2021 |
Dust
90 x 150cm Oil on Canvas 2022 |