THE FAR PROVINCE

Wherever I think I end, I begin

The Far Province is a series of etchings and drawings created in late summer of 2020 in Galicia, Northern Spain.

Galicia, also called Terra Meiga (Land of the witches) is a historical landscape, a remote and relatively unknown province of Spain – a rural, almost medieval land, a mystical and magical country of pilgrims and witches, serving as a backdrop and a mirror to images raising up from within and without, lending a face to that what is faceless.

This remote place by the rough Atlantic sea, full of windy harbours and endless forests once thought to be the end of the world, serves as point of departure for a non-place, the other side, the subconscious: The Far Province.

In a time where the whole world comes to a halt and the only step we can do is a step back, the exploration of The Far Province is an exploration of the inside world in a wider sense: Not restricting itself to a “self”, it explores the the all-encompassing collective unconscious, the intertwined, invisible roots that grow between us; the living shadows in which we sleep when we think we are awake: And what sleeps us in these shadows raises to light in the shape of wondrous, marvellous and sometimes horrific images.

The Far Province alludes to Rumi’s poem “the far mosque”, which describes a place that can only be found within, a secret place in the soul where mystical conversation takes place. It also refers to the image of the “other province” coined by the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, which stands for times that have passed and will never come back.

The Far Province is a mapping of a fluid world inhabited by creatures that are part real, part imaginary: The wild horse, the shell seeker, the mermaid, the ridiculous magician, the secret saint. They all live in the dark spaces between us and raise into visibility from the interplay between the wild nature and memories of mythologies. And between what is real and what is imaginary emerges an imagery that is both foreign and familiar, both personal and universal.

The Far Province is an ongoing project which is planned to be continued as soon as the circumstances allow.