By Lucy Stein
Clik here to view.
Lucy Stein and Simon Bayliss, Men an tol / Ding dong! (The Sacred sites of West Penwith), 2016. Courtesy the artist; photograph: Lucy Stein/Simon Bayliss
In a new series, frieze invites artists to present a series of images that are important to them
Men an tol / Ding dong! (The Sacred sites of West Penwith)
In 2010, when I lived in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland, I had an epiphany that reactivated in me some magical knowledge that had lain latent since my early twenties. Since that point, I have tried to bring that knowledge to the surface through my work, especially in my painting performances with Death Shanties, a jazz band formed of Sybren Renema, Alex Neilson and myself.
When I moved to Cornwall last year I became deeply involved with the sacred sites in the Penwith district. I love feeling the different numinous atmospheres of each site, trying to harness their power and redirect it into my artwork. The writing of the late painter and writer Ithell Colquhoun has been very helpful, as has that of the St Buryan based witch Gemma Gary and Starhawk, a radical feminist witch from California, USA.
I am still unsure about how far I want to go into ‘the craft’. Living as I now do in St Just, the option to go all the way is always there, but as I tend to reject the calcification of anything felt on a subterranean level, I will probably just stay in this liminal state of half-witch forever. There are also the calibrating factors of my sense of humour and my natural skepticism, which rear up after too much interaction with the more dour elements of ‘Celtic Pagan Goddess worshipping Cornwall’.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
