Description

This Linocut takes its title from the epic poem by Walt Whitman called Song of Myself. Here I respond to the poem by playing with ideas to do with inside and outside; both inside and outside the room as well as inside and outside the self, in my image literally bringing the outside in.

The poem has a sense of awe and wonder about the human experience which I relate to. This quote about the poem articulates the feelings I endeavour to capture in this image.

“Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself are the words of a mystic. He identifies aloneness as a treasurable essence of the essential being to be celebrated. his poem closely defines right awareness as a relaxed or “loaf” approach to the most subtle experiences. Whitman described knowledgeability alone as a burden to the essential being, where the pursuit of meaning becomes entangled with preconceived ideas and borrowed knowledge. Whitman implores the reader to reach a cathartic state from all the borrowed knowledge in the world that has crowded the view of one’s self. Walt Whitman believes there is a much more qualitative depth to one’s intelligence and through the bond of one’s self, of one’s aloneness: even the simplest of experiences can provide the richness of poetry.”

UKEssays. (November 2018) An Analysis.

Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/walt-whitmans-song-of-myself.php?vref=1

This Linocut is hand carved, then rolled up with ink by hand and hand-printed through a hand turned printmaking press. When the Prints are dry the artist paints the yellow ink onto the image using archival pigmented inks.