Norman Shaw

Ink on paper, 2001

20 x 30cm

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Exhibited at 'Highland' exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2007

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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)

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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. The otherworld they inhabit is on a plane parallel to tours, which can often be accessed at sites of particular sacredness or geomantic significance.

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', Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen.

The music of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound also had an impact on this group of drawings.