ISSUE 01: STATE(D) VIOLENCE
ABOUT
DYLAN ANGELL
Dylan Angell is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. He has released a number of books and chapbooks including Demanding the Room (Bored Wolves Press), Anywhere I Lay My Head (The Silent Academy), and Photo Never Taken (The Concern Newsstand). He recently released a collection of writing with artwork by Lizzy Hindman-Harvey titled Airs. He performs in the band Lightbulbs in the Trees and co-organises the multimedia series Evenings. He has collaborated with many visual artists including Mark He, Peter Hurley and Erin Taylor Kennedy.
OXBLOOD
I often listen to recordings of painters talking about their work. Today, while walking down the road, I was soundtracked by a Scottish gentleman who spoke of painting with the blood of an ox. I had not yet seen the artist’s work but I imagined a white canvas marked with an uneven red and brown splash of a chalk and milk consistency. Once the image of the canvas entered my mind I realized that it was quite similar to the images that were already occupying my mind– I have seen many photos of blood in recent months. The artist seemed gentle. He had grown up in a small industrial town and he used painting techniques that were no longer commonly practiced. He spoke of using a gold pigment made from leaves that were once used to paint icons during the Byzantine era. He spoke of how when painters once needed a color that they had to find it in nature and often this meant sourcing the color from the very thing that they were painting: blood looked the most like blood, dirt the most like dirt, grass the most like grass. I felt an urge to stop and press my hand to the ground. The artist spoke with such empathy for nature, as if whatever he made was only a pale imitation to what the natural world had already shown him. As these days continue to bring images of death and destruction, I have thought about this artist, because while we might try, we can never replicate the beauty of what has been taken.
(Editor’s Note: “Oxblood” is reprinted from Angell’s longer work “John Candy’s Funeral,” also available through Blue Bag. You can read that