Meet the artist
Friday 24th September, 7-9pm
PLUS: Wine Tasting with
Jean Juviniere Fine Wines
Fact from Fiction - (the water of life)
Go to a place: a shoreline.
Stay a while.
Stand and look
Look and feel.
Flicker up a figment of the mind
Where is the sun?
What is the hour?
Where is the echo?
What is the sound?
Can you hear it - the water?
Can you feel the passing?
Time like water flows,
It surges in and drifts away:
Forming change;
Holding possibility.
Then washing memories,
and leaving us behind.
But imagine still,
Infinite possibilities.
Waves the consequence of action and reaction,
Merging past and present.
Opposites are true until revelation.
Waves to particles to waves to particles,
The principle is uncertain
Until the cat dies.
But go back.
Can you hear it – the water?
Can you feel the passing?
How can I be certain?
Fact to fiction,
Fiction to fact.
Verity to illusion,
Belief to truth.
Connecting the unconnected, for facts are constructed
and evidence selected.
“See what you want to see and disregard the rest”.
History is written by those with the pen.
The hero is the patriot;
The hero is the racist;
The hero is the murderer;
All is what it seems.
Post fact. Post truth.
Objective facts are a thing or the past;
Verity to delusion.
The man behind the porcelain face trumps out:
“I’ve never been against the mask”
Alternative facts are fiction.
Alternative lies are lies.
“Be smart. Stay apart” from this.
But go back, and back
Can you still hear it – the water?
Can you still feel the passing?
Is it not strange that when you were 7,
a long time ago, was when you were 6?
Is this a fact to do with your body mass
or a relative fiction?
But go back, and back, and back
To that place on the shoreline.
The surging and drifting.
The possibilities and the changes.
The fact and the fiction,
Floating in time and space.
For if you look out and look in
It is amazing what you see.
Stephen Todd
September 2020
Fact from Fiction
“Good story telling is about drawing readers in; making it personal and, more importantly, not telling the reader what to think.”
Stephen Todd’s practice has always been rooted in narrative.
Water is very much in evidence in Stephen’s images as source, storyteller and purveyor of history. Working on Bockingford 425g/m2 paper he layers marks, colours and forms using gouache, indian ink, pastel and graphite to conjure images from Greek Mythology as well as other histories and imaginings, onto the very real presence of the Humber estuary.
For Stephen, the titles are a crucial starting point in navigating the work. Like the first line of a story, they are something that opens up all sorts of possibilities without defining them of closing them off.
“You don’t find meaning in looking into yourself alone, but in seeing yourself in the world around you: its past, present and future; and the relationships that surround you. “ Stephen Todd
