Note fragments

the physician - from 'circular ruin'

the physician (circular ruin) david marron

The Physician is a life-sized sculpture configured from a skeletal armature of wood and plaster that embodies certain objects. It has the conflicting demeanour of shared doctoral representations. The unnerving apparel of a plague doctor – with herb filled beak, eye glass, black apron and prodding stick (here fashioned to recall Asclepius’s snake entwined staff – still brandished as a medical emblem). A shamanic headdress sprouting outward is countered with a modern surgical gown and stethoscope.
The torso is modelled into a historic medicinal snapshot, with a background that references The Hippocratic Oath, surgical instrumentation and anatomical maps. The case is segmented into three parts – the top implicating analgesia – electric fish, laudanum, paracetamol. The middle encompassing the cleansing aspects of larvae and leeches (itself an archaic word for physician). The lower half drawing upon the inherent remedial properties of honey – suturing and bacterial resistance, a hypertonic.
A bird cage at the Physician’s feet recalls Magritte’s works upon The Healer and a cluster of objects recognise the foxglove flower found within Van Gogh’s portrait of Dr Gachet. The extractions of the foxglove being used in the formation of cardiac glycosides – prescribed to combat cardiac arrhythmias. The medical dictionary upon the figures head cites the Bosch painting – Stone Operation. Deriding the medical charlatans who desired the acquisition of knowledge without study, in balancing a book upon the head and willing the information to pass down via osmosis.

The origin of Circular Ruin - fragment from notes to accompany installation

circular ruin note panel - david marron

Gathering flies pester the inside of a windows pane
A decorative accumulation that forms an insect curtain
This dipterous interruption alerts the neighbours to an absence
An absence that had so far gone unnoticed

The metal lock splinters the supporting doorframe as it is forced open
A pile of unopened letters and fliers clothe the doormat
The muffled voice from a radio beckons toward the kitchen
An ominous odour becomes apparent
The house groans
Upon the floor lies a clothed body
The stained tissue still tucked under the cardigan sleeve makes aching assumptions toward a person
What darkens the floor now does not
The radio pretends it’s unaware

Fragments from this past life
Remain housed in the surrounding objects
Objects arranged purposefully around the room
Placed to be seen
Selected for sentiment, aesthetics, function, a gift, amusement, pride, aspiration, an heirloom, a collection, an illness, a souvenir or no reason
Unwitting familial faces grin out of framed photographs
Yellowing from age and nicotine
This object audience regard the corpse with discomfort
Their meaning now lost to an uninterested world
An identity lessened by the loss of their curator
The relationship to one another is one reduced to proximity
Anxiety replaces the shared stories, the dusting cloth
They wait, inactive and unready

An artwork derived from these objects
From the scene itself
The raw, visceral impact of human decomposition
Its screaming repugnance
Within the temperate private surround
A solitary end with an object cluster
Without a straight forward replication of the scene
Placing significance upon the object possession
Its past, its possibility

circular ruin - an end, a cycle

circular ruin drawing fragment - david marron

Over time arteriosclerosis has claimed its fatty deposit and hardened the arterial walls.
A small piece of plaque eroded off this wall gets carried along in the blood stream.
It lodges where the coronary artery narrows, disrupting the blood flow.
The myocardial tissue beyond this blockage becomes ischaemic then dies, forming noncontractile scar tissue.
The heart is permanently damaged.
The inability of the myocardium to contract fully incurs cardiac failure.
This inadequate cardiac output can entail cardiogenic shock.
Necrosis of the cardiac tissue affects the hearts conduction system, opening the door to arrhythmias.
The onset of ventricular fibrillation causes the hearts electrical activity to become rapid and chaotic.
The heart can no longer function.
As the heart fibrillates it is unable to pump blood into the pulmonary and systemic circulation.
Cardiac arrest is apparent.
All electrical activity eventually subsides and cerebral anoxia ensues death.
The blood no longer circulates.
The pull of gravity takes effect upon the bodily fluid.
Hypostasis reads as blood pools in lower bodily areas patterning the skin in purple and paling that above.
The body temperature drops.
Chemical changes within the tissue contract muscles and stiffen joints as rigor mortis envelopes.
Anaerobic bacteria within and upon the body fuels decomposition.
The bacterium invokes gas within the intestinal tract, bloating the body.
Entomological life, cycles out of this death.

circular ruin - the light dims

Rather than the daylight, a pain radiating from the chest woke her. As she propped her upper body upon her elbows a generalised weariness soaked in toward the bone. She thought that maybe she was coming down with something. At the edge of the bed she felt her feet into her slippers and stood to wrap herself in her faded dressing gown. This movement increased momentarily the discomfort within her chest, motioning a tightness that borrowed her breath. She steadied herself against the chest of drawers, gaining fortitude from the framed photograph of her dead husband. Although widowed for nearly eight years, the fifty one years together had cemented an emotional bond unbreakable even by means of a departure. She spoke to the empty rooms as if he still inhabited them and his lopsided, congenial smile reaching out from the photograph often caused her torso to ache with longing despair. The ache was different today. She went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, hoping that this common protagonist would offer some kind of reassurance. A nausea that had gradually asserted itself prevented the consumption of some buttered toast and she put the docket box holding her daily medication to one side. Faintness pressured her to an armchair. As she sat she looked out at Pimlico skies. There was little to do today. She was nearly out of milk. The niggling pain just left of her lower sternum again attracted attention. She contemplated phoning the doctors surgery to make an appointment. Presuming the Monday clinic to be over engaged and hoping her condition may improve decided her against the call. Gloomily and with lacklustre she got herself washed and dressed. Turning on the radio an uneasiness settled upon her. Sitting down again urged thoughts toward calling her daughter. Hesitation prevented this. She did not want to bother anyone, to be any trouble. She missed her daughter, her grandchildren. The pain within her chest augmented rather than eased. The nausea was more constant. Even whilst sitting, a breathlessness had become manifest. As she stood she vomited. A sheen of cold sweat clasped her paled face. She felt so horribly weak and dizzy. The room blackened around her. The aged and hunched body, unable to support itself, collapsed to the floor. As consciousness departed, her last inclinations were to clean up her stomach contents from the carpet. Her eyes stopped looking. Her irregular breaths slowed and ceased. Her heart stopped beating. The radio remained on.

Explaining 'Imaginary Shipwreck'

Imaginary shipwreck was derived initially from Rembrandts portrait of Margaretha de Geer. As something that exerts an influence, a hold - aesthetically, emotionally and intellectually. Conspired by some intrinsic intrigue that temporarily steals your attention and then triggers ruminative thoughts after you have parted company. Then inviting return visits as if spending time with some artificial ancestor.
Various drawings and notes began from these meetings, not with anything particular in mind but just as a reaction.

'An old woman appears from a darkened room. A dim spotlight picks out her versed face. She understands life holds no more surprises. Sorrow flickers in her right eye, a mild madness in the left. An apparition that wished it hadn’t, her head on a plate – Salome the Baptist. A labourers hand clutches a bit of cloth that hangs like a dead animal, the other more solid than the wooden arm it rests upon. She sits and watches the same mistakes being remade, unable to turn away. Looking on from her timeless window cell with a resigned smile and a damaged sneer. Rembrandts ghost.'

This collection of notes and drawings seemed to suggest avenues for a new piece of work. They threw up connotations to other works, to history, mythology, science and literature. The notes seemed integral to the work and so together with other material (related prints and works) were framed to become eight panels.

'Changing Geer.
Life’s natural erosion of the physical form accentuates its complexity, a weathered body and overloaded mind.
The silent partner of a wealthy businessman or an iron fist, the stirrup and bite of the mule she rode. A thorn.
Sat smugly upon the higher rungs of society, glaring - daring any would be detractors. Searing the eyes of others, dreaming her importance.
Or just an old woman, worn, matter of fact, who has accepted the inevitable, herself, her flaws, her mistakes, her deeds, without care because it is no longer of consequence.'

Possibly for personal reasons (blood bound matriarchal figures becoming ill) and due to a contemporary setting - a wheelchair seemed a more appropriate throne. This set a tone for the rest of the work. Imaginary shipwreck began to evolve into a triptych installation – the panels of notes, a large drawing and a sculpted/object figure.
The large drawing was an attempt to combine the humanity of the Rembrandt portrait whilst referencing Renaissance postures and combining a more modern fragmentation. For example the insertion of an x-ray as opposed to a chest - this inversed hollow representation possibly revealing some cancerous growth (living without knowing).
The use of a wheelchair instigated references toward a wheel: a wheel of fortune – chance, roulette, the unpredictability of life, Fortuna, the medieval breaking wheel – Catherine of Alexandria.
The sculpted, assembled figure to be placed within a prison cell – the picture cell of Rembrandts portrait. With the features of de Geer’s face resembled in the sculpted head. An iris flower as one eye, a clock for the other. A tea towel as a habit headdress positioned amongst other habits – needles, cigarettes. A tyre for a neck – South African ‘necklace victims’. A John the Baptist plate replacing a ruff, holding an elderly offering of boiled sweets.
A torso trunk holding hoarded items. Items of biblical imagery - a rib: Eve; an apple: Adam, Newton, Greek mythology, still life, Vesalius, sin.
Rather than collate random objects, every object was placed purposefully as a symbol – a reference.

'Plaster hands in marigolds
A snake replacing the cloth
Held in the right hand
The tail in its mouth, a circle
(Eternal cell, watching mankind’s repetitive mistakes)
Ouroboros – eating own tale to form a circle
Cyclical, eternal recurrence, vicious and infinite
Asclepius rod symbolising medicine
Medusas blood in his veins
(Snake/hair, eyes/stone, poison/heal)
Serpent shedding skin - rebirth
Staff - authority
The pharmaceutical bowl of Hygieia
A goddess of health depicted with a snake
A caduceus – a serpent entwined winged staff carried by Hermes
Medical emblem
Snake tempter of Eve, forbidden fruit

A poppy in the other hand
Opium, sleep, death, blood
(An eternal sleep with open eyes)
World war bloodshed, remembrance
Poppy seed glove'

The legs built from a language base. Limb and its definitions – branch (olive), wing, protractor, telescope, planet edge, leaf. A branch and planet molecular structure shaping the leg, covered in cobweb due to disuse – wheelchair bound. Perversely placed in running shoes.
The figure placed in a cell, with a Damocles type knife hanging portently or pointlessly above. The drawing and note panels placed nearby, independently documenting the piece as a whole.
This installation was conceived from the seed of another work - an artwork derived from an artwork. Not in the form of a reproduction, but ignited thoughts realised from a meeting. It became a work upon looking at art in general, whether figurative or conceptual, whether a sweet of Gonzales – Torres or a transient thought from Gallaccio. Considerations about looking, interpreting, admiring, disliking, adding, subtracting, overlooking, inventing, remembering, forgetting, becoming, destroying, taking or leaving. Something to occupy or pass by.

'Admire the form – on occasion it is enough
Absorb an intention or not care to
Find a connotation and drift away
Pick up some meaning or invent some
Fictionalise (given the room to breathe)
Or asphyxiate – sometimes a stifled climate breeds'