Poetry in the Dark Print - Limited Edition of 100

Poetry in the Dark is a painting that wants to express the experience of listening to poetry with closed eyes and should not be confused with a focus upon dark poetry. Dark poetry wants to capture sorrow, pain, the fragility of life, grief, death, anxiety, rage, despair, loneliness, jealousy, doubt, heartbreak, and betrayal while I want also to include the poetry of light and laughter in this visual impression. Poetry is a highly sophisticated art form that involves a deep empathy with the language as an experimental tool to express deeply felt intellectual and emotional thoughts. Poetry in the dark wants to evoke the words of a poetic text that escape their literary confinement to circle around the receptive mind in similar ways as moths are attracted to the light of a candle. ‘Darkness’: A Poem by Lord Byron I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d, And men were gather’d round their blazing homes To look once more into each other’s face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain’d; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down