Narcissus is vain, wouldn’t you say? And as for Echo, she suffers from a mild case of obsession – perhaps the result of child trauma, or was it that she just talked too much? What is it you see? Is it the young man, strong, athletic, beautiful and proud, or is it the grasping tragic loner withered by his desire? Do you ever get the feeling that you’re talking to yourself, or is it that no one wants to listen?

Narcissus falls in love with himself. Not such a bad thing you might think when so much harm is done by self-loathing. It’s perhaps somewhat easier to empathise with Echo, to have your amorous advances checked by the object of your desire. Your prey gazing only upon his own liquid presence, the dripping and layered fluid of your own existence is but a by-product of your history. But a loquacious spirit is destined for humiliation. Too many wars have been started by too much talking and not enough listening.

Does all myth have to be so problematic, irrational and paradoxical? Well yes, if it isn’t to merely tell you what you want to hear.

My work looks at the relation of narrative, myth and pilgrimage in a post demythologised culture. It seeks an apophatic mythology, looking for a language of negation where memory, obsession and desire can play out the paradox which makes them both powerful and impotent.

Like a pilgrim, I journey to places real and imagined. A pilgrim carries the manifestation of his belief. He becomes a cultural tourist, eager to find evidence and equivalents to his understanding. I look for catalysts – centres of synthesis and memory where I might share what I know and become part of its fabric and history.

Pilgrims are in movement, their experiences layered. Paintings are static, their images move only in the minds of the audience. But like the memories of a pilgrim, images melt into a form more real than the experience itself.

©Matthew Burrows