whirlwind.
A storm assembled from myth, projection, and fracture.
Whirlwind embraces fragmentation as both process and theme, reassembling figures, episodes, and motifs from mythic traditions into a sprawling, ever-shifting composition. Developed in collaboration with the British Museum’s Blake Collection, London, the work builds upon William Blake’s The Lovers' Whirlwind from his study of Dante’s Divine Comedy, extending Blake’s vision into a contemporary idiom. Just as the great canonical epics evolved through accumulation, reference, and reiteration, Whirlwind unfolds across the Courtenay Place light boxes, each an instalment in a broader theatrical sequence. As the imagery gathers, its progression draws on the specific context of Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour), where collaged forms emerge, dissolve, and reconfigure in a continuous cycle of collapse and renewal.
This digital artefact made physical reflects the artist’s interest in the “etymology” of images: their layered histories, transformations, and shifting meanings across time. Gods, heroes, and creatures merge and morph to fit within the available spaces of the design. Birds, beasts, and restless energies surge through the surface, entwining the mythic with the natural world. The work embraces the precision of commercial illustration, reveling in the tension between imposed order and unpredictable change. Like the epics themselves, it is iterative, gathering new elements while retaining echoes of earlier forms and reflecting both local and global cosmologies.
The title evokes Wellington’s blustery winds, but the project also speaks to the turbulence of the cultural present: shifting climates, fractured narratives, and contested histories. It takes shape within the particular context of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, drawing on its windswept harbour, layered histories, and culture of performance, music, and storytelling. Designed for visual exploration along the street, the shifting scale and layered imagery resist passive viewing. Figures, animals, and symbols surface gradually, inviting close attention and active engagement. Each panel rewards observation with accumulative discoveries, drawing viewers into a world where the mythic, the social, and the imaginative converge.
Created for the Courtenay Place Lightboxes, Wellington.
William blake, the lovers’ whirilwind 1827
