2025 Land Street Gallery
Migration
The world is made up of many worlds;
some are connected,
and some are not
Ghost Stories
Responses to local ghost stories while travelling the UK in winter 2024.
Lites of Lochness is about a tale that suggested the monster was actually the effects of a larger haunting that a nice lady in yarn shop spoke of.
Photo taken from the freezing shore of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus.
Not flesh and bone is the watery creature,
But the spirits of those that the lake did devour.
As they dance on the water and ripple the surface,
They sing their sad songs and they brood and they glower.
The Lost Boys of Oystermouth is about the tale of the White Lady haunting Oystermouth Castle at Mumbles in Wales.
Photo taken in the dawn while trying to spot a fox.
The lady in white now all covered in red,
Took vengeance on those and the sons they had bred.
Snubbed were her gifts one fine Sulgwyn Day,
So they paid in full for the offence they had made.
Ghosts of Pine Haven shows the ghosts of lost Cornish miners returning home. The mines extended out miles below the rough seas and many were lost to cave ins and flooding.
Photo taken at Pine Haven, the cove adjacent to Port Isaac in Cornwall on a windy morning walk.
On the first day of winter the miners come home,
Trapped in wet darkness only now do they roam.
Lost to the underground deep out at sea,
The ghosts in the wind now come home to thee.
X_NIKS
Reflections on human (and animal) sacrifice during early stages of the Soviet / US space race.
Cosmonaut
by
Ariel Wilson
We are thrust into the Earth’s atmosphere.
As trail blazers,
In hopes of finding success and glory,
Of finding Achilles or Heracles.
Up there,
We find Icarus.
Skin melting,
Wax dripping from bones protruding from his spine.
Icarus smiles with skin welts that tear,
And oozes,
Dribbling golden blood down his cheeks.
There is skin dripping from his fingers
I look downwards and see we are not much unlike.
The uniform I wear is alight in unfamiliar flame.
And I am finally numb and free.
Watching the heat peel away my humanity.
Icarus takes our hands and propels us into something beyond our human form.
Beyond our roles as fathers and sons,
Mothers and daughters,
Parents and children.
He propels us into plumes of stardust,
Illuminating our sacrifice into a glowing constellation in the sky.
Vladimir Komarov died screaming during re-entry of the Soyuz 1 test flight.
He was the first recorded human to die during space flight.
Komarov took part in the mission despite knowing it was launching prematurely and would be doomed to fail.
An imagined propaganda poster, coopting a version of the Mighty Atom, to encourage a participation in the new age of space travel.
We dreamed to touch the stars
And when we did
Our fingers bled golden
Footnotes
by
Ariel Wilson
We live in footnotes
In hushed conversations
Fitting ourselves in between conspiracy
But we are here
Haunting history
We are misremembered
Or maybe long forgotten properly
Hidden by those who would not honour us
An imagined propaganda poster, coopting a version of the Rei from End of Evangelion, to encourage sacrifice in the new age of space travel.
In response to the voice heard by the Judica-Cordiglia Brothers.
An imagined propaganda poster, coopting a version of the Airside image from Battle Royale, to encourage sacrifice in the new age of space travel.
In response to the voice heard by the Judica-Cordiglia Brothers.
Enceladus_Project
Imagined images from an early lander on Enceladus. These images capture the orbits and mass landing of a terraforming mission.
Limina
Sitting at the threshold, looking out through fading memories, intertwining with imagination.
The Limina series attempts to capture these moments:
staring at a flickering horizon,
looking through an opaquing window,
the possible view down from above.
A Dream:
The Friend
by
Ariel Wilson
The Friend reminds us of the soft divine
The gentleness found in quiet love
And the eventual long rest we all will fall into
The Influence Peddlers
The influence peddlers.
They can only whisper in our ears. A single word can give you courage, or turn your favourite pleasure into your worst nightmare.
Those with the demon's touch and those part angel, living alongside us.
They call it the balance.
I call it hypocritical bullshit.
The doors of Darkplace were opened.
Not the literal doors to the building, most of which were closed, but evil doors, dark doors, doors to the beyond.
Doors that were hard to shut because they were abstract and didn't have handles.
The Holy See
A series inspired by the irreligious fever dream Berserk by Kentaro Miura.
The Holy See explores iconography and repetition of the image of gods and goddesses.
The frames came from the Mater Mothers Hospital in BNE that were discarded during a renovation in 2022.
The images are painted on the reverse of the ply that the cheaply printed image of Mary appears on.
Tiles
SMURFY ATOM
Soaring high in the sky,
He may be small but only in size.
スマーフアトム, スマーフアトム,
He is smurf and smurfy and wise!
Following the death of his child at the hands of Gargamil, Papa Smurf developed a robot child to replace his son, to ease his grief and belay his suffering.
The child was built to be able to defend themselves and other smurfs from further tyranny.
Papa Smurf’s heart could never be healed but this simulacrum and in his despair he rejected Smurfy Atom.
This rejection left Smurfy Atom heartbroken and he put himself in unnecessary peril, facing Gargamil and Azrael head on in battle.
He fell at the paws of Azrael, moments before he could land a fatal blow upon the almost defeated Gargamil.
Pavé Immaculum
And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
dvr@darkviolentratio.com