The Phantom Strikes Again
2023 - linocut & acrylic | original size 24×24 cm | 4 print runs
Sometimes a memory returns in images you once captured yourself - innocent, imperfect, but full of promise. The Phantom Strikes Again is based on an 8mm film I made as a young man during a 1978 summer: a carefree trip in an ugly duckling through England and France with my best friend. We filmed without a plan, driven by the feeling that anything was possible, that life was still open.
The rolls of film then disappeared in a drawer for almost half a century, until they resurfaced and were edited again, with music that gave colour to the past. From that rediscovery came this linocut: a representation of the blurred borderland between memory and fiction, between youthful bravado and the melancholic awareness of time.
The title is taken from the song of the same name associated with the film - it opens with the line: "There's a man, standing on the corner of the street..."
That image, of someone watching, waiting, and perhaps observing himself, became the heart of this work. The layered print runs in soft blues, warm ochres and deep blacks capture the feeling of grainy film images, of memories that don't allow themselves to be focused, but can be felt.
I am a visual artist and musician. In my work, I create parallel worlds as refuge from the everyday - places where memory, dream and imagination converge.
My lino prints, paintings, music and podcasts form spherical stories where past and present intertwine. I use my own experiences,..
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