PAUL BLOOMER | three works for a better world


I am reminded of a creature that sits on the edge of the world absorbing signs of life and listening to the stories of birds. This is what a great artist should be: an explorer and re-teller of tales, and it is undoubtably what Paul Bloomer has achieved in his latest works. In this series of sixteen etchings Bloomer shows us events from the lives of birds around his adopted home in the Shetlands. This ornithological realm  is unencumbered by the wayward vices and borders of human society, a reminder that there are other ways to be. It is also a story about the time-compressed and precious light of Shetland’s ‘simmer dim.’ After this comes autumn and winter. There is a cycle of time that we should live by.

PAUL BLOOMER | watching stone | etching | 21cm x 15cm

Bloomer has been inspired by Goya’s ‘Los caprichos’ where each etching is accompanied with a short piece of text. Bloomer’s ‘Watching Stone’ is accompanied by Rumi: ‘Somewhere between right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there.’ The magic of this etching is not just the balanced composition, it is the light (created by rubbing chalk on the etching plate) which is everywhere. Light haloes one oyster catcher and is inside the bodies of gulls that circle healing stones. It is also on the horizon that pulls us in as if, one day, everything will end up there - north of north  - the viewer, gulls, oyster catchers and even the stones. It is both a joyful and melancholy thought of the ultimate interconnectedness of all living things. 


PAUL BLOOMER | Flight | etching | 21cm x 15cm


‘Flight’ is accompanied by the words of Chief Seattle (1854) ‘How can we sell the air?’ Here dandelion seeds float above the sea towards the light. It is a simple composition with few objects and a straight horizon, but Bloomer gives us the impression of the air supporting the seeds. They are in balance between sea and sky and would fall if against Chief Seattle’s wishes ‘the air was sold.’ It is hypnotically beautiful, a world of vulnerable weightless floating and acceptance of light and wind.

‘Layers of Time’ is different. Here natural forces are strong, and the remains of all epochs are eventually filled away in the geological library . In this etching time dwarfs us and light embraces everything – the birds and the stones which glow in their shelves. The text included with this is ‘these rocks live in an eternal peace that lives through storms and war.’ This is a sensitive work by an artist who looks out from the edge of the world with clarity, aware of the vastness of deep-time and the brevity of a human life.

Tony Davidson, October 2018


PAUL BLOOMER | layers of time | etching | 15cm x 21cm

PAUL BLOOMER on Kilmorack Gallery website


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