Marking the Anniversary with Vitruvius

Marking the Anniversary with Vitruvius, etching, 35 x 26cm

"Eighteen years ago, my life was turned upside down by a brain injury, requiring me to rebuild a life based on a person who thought, felt, saw and heard the world differently to the one I had known for 29 years. I also found myself with a new birth date, an anniversary that each year presents me with a confusing dilemma of celebratory survival and deeply felt loss. 

My 18th anniversary found me taking comfort in the studies of Vitruvius and Leonardo da Vinci: both scholars, separated by 14 centuries, and fascinated by the relationship of the body to the universe.

Taking my lead from Leonardo’s 1490 drawing, Vitruvian Man, using the same dimensions, body proportions and mirror writing that he used, I created my own manifesto to mark my entry into adulthood, using my extensive studies of the body in pain and exploring my 12 yearlong ritual of hand standing."

This artwork is currently winging its way to Queenscliff Gallery and Workshop. It was selected for the inaugural Peebles Print Prize, August 3 - September 10.

I began creating this work in October last year (2016) on the eve of the 18th anniversary of my brain injury. 18th birthdays are big, for everyone. I wanted to make something grand to recognise the time passed, and to acknowledge my skills, my survival and my suffering. I decided that it was the perfect time to hang out with greats such as Leonardo and Vitruvius. And in my little manifesto exploring the body and the Universe, written onto the copper plate, on 12 October 2016, I discovered that I have done over 20, 000 handstands! Quite an achievement.

The back to front writing is called mirror writing. It was a favoured technique of da Vinci, some say, because he considered his thoughts rather secret, and others say, because he was a left hander and it prevented the ink smudging. But it isn't really a secret. If you place my work or his, up to a mirror, it can be easily read, (or just reverse the image on a computer!). But it is important to me (and probably to da Vinci too),  that the text cannot be easily read, at least not straight away.

I am really enjoying being 18. It is still a challenging and emotionally turbulent time, maybe not unlike the experience of all other 18 year olds, but I finally feel like I am starting to grow into myself. I am growing up!

Here's a detail from this artwork.

And here is the same detail reversed so you can read some of the writing.