Norman Shaw
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Secret Well
Ink on paper, 2001
20 x 30cm
Published in 'Linear Sorcery' by Norman Shaw, in 'Fieldnotes and Sketchbooks - Challenging the Boundaries between Descriptions and Processes of Describing' edited by Wendy Gunn (Peter Lang, 2009)
The sidhe are the Celtic fairy folk, inhabitants of the liminal realm between our dimension and other ones not normally accessible to us, except under extraordinary circumstances.
These drawings are responses to personal mystical encounters, and also to the work of Austin Osman Spare, William Blake and surrealist automatic drawing. They were also inspired by reading W.Y. Evans-Wentz's 'The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries', The Rev. Robert Kirk's 'The Secret Commonwealth', and the writngs of George Russell / 'AE'.
The music of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound also had an impact on this group of drawings.