Artist Statement | Braille

Humankind has looked into the indigo deep of the night sky since before time found a name. This universe of darkness is mysterious, alluring, and by the very inaccessibility of its nature, invites space for intimacy. Darkness is a doorway for the imagination, our own uncharted universe quiet within us, waiting to enter communion with the infinite.

To lay one’s head on the dark earth, to feel her heartbeat in tune with your own as you gaze upward towards the door to eternity, is to surrender to the infinite in oneself.

The heart is our own mysterious opening to other worlds, to those things we cannot see, but feel. To those things we imagine. It is by the faith we hold in our hearts, by those daily acts of courage, the necessity to continually stretch out our hand in the dark, that we move toward each other in intimacy. It is our inner light that penetrates the darkness of the unknown. It is by our courage and our willingness to open our hearts to feeling, to touch, and ultimately to the unknown, that we can overcome blindness in our selves.

We all, to some degree, suffer the wound of blindness. It is in our soul essence that we share with the world around us, that we find near perfect sight. Before words, before thinking, there is a simple, deep response, a feeling in the heart that recognizes truth. I wish, in these pieces, to speak to that place.

The Braille that forms the ground of this work, is my own poetic text composed and then translated into individual sheets. I work in translucent layers of oil glazes over this ground to transform the text into a landscape evocative of space and the cosmos. The text you cannot read, but perceive, is indicative of the illusion of the world of the senses. There is always more to the world than meets the eye. One must be willing to explore deeper realities to approach the universe of mysteries.

O Orpheus! you the first singer of holy songs you who charmed oaks and moved the stones

sing through us whose music made wild beasts to lay down

Though the earth suffers

though seas and temperatures rise

and somewhere rebels lay to waste another empire

falling

though gentle men

in back alleys are beaten at gunpoint

though we could not save her

From the light we sing

we Lions

stand and sing drawing in and out one coherent column of air

all hearts aligned invisible beating for one moment

men together making harmony

Though there is sadness in the world we are singing

this act a laying down of arms this place safe

Music sweet on the tongue

here we are brothers drawing breath drawing you in

Together the lift the fall

the shattering

silence

between notes

the stopped breath

Listen this too is our offering

what you come for by this touch the hardest heart unfastened

the body’s armour unbuckled

long held tears loosed

by the beneficent chord unfettered free

aching with what brings you alive by each note of beauty struck and made

whole again renewed this fragile song of heart

love stitched

out of empty air together joined in one sublime utterance

sustained as far as longing can reach on and on the one note that will save your life

GABRYEL HARRISON

GABRYEL HARRISON