Again, I wasn't going to post, but the whole process is somewhat addictive!
So the source here is clearly Henri Rousseau, but his characters in jungle settings like this are female. It's a seemingly simple transposition, but it is an evocation, Narcissistic and focused on the unrequited. He dreams, he might be a former me, but the abstracted foliage is a metaphor for the impenetrability of desire, or the world. It is luxuriant, but unyielding. You have to take a machete to cut through it. It takes a lifetime and leaves you drained. I fled such a love to live in Mexico, long before the internet or phones that could connect as easily with the UK as with the house next door. The post took up to 6 weeks; everything was out of sync. And though I wrote to the beloved, he only managed one recalcitrant reply. I wouldn't be surprised if all the correspondence from those days had been thrown out with the rusty metal, the collage material, the records of both sides of the family, browns and Salters. That is a regret, but it matters as little as every other thing that supposedly matters! I will work on this vigorously alll through the coming week and then post the results. I might keep this one for the Ferris Foundation. Depends how it turns out.
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