top of page

Ape with Blade

Tim Cantor, 2010

How do I explain something absurd, so senseless; maybe less for you than me?

There was an odd feeling, an odd state of mind, looking at the twilight, almost ten at night, and being where I was. This was one day left in Paris. Maybe it was two. The bridge, black as I recall, the water just below, reflective, yet blacker than the bridge. A leaf, a branch, a bird, drifted past my sight; and like you, I wanted to live and stay in the strange dusk of the city. I wish I could think of better words, some words, maybe more unique. But that is not my point. The point - is not much point at all. Peering down the waterways, split by manors and spires and pleasant bone filled walls, I saw something in my head, something I’d call nothing, nobody, or anything at all. So often sights appear, always unexpected, never when I plan. Mostly though, those peculiar thoughts get thrown into a pail; a pot of unimportance, nonsense, noise - cast off in the weeds, absorbed, dispersed, forgotten. Everything I aim to see I try to feed a touching end. But this time, what turned up, was a creature that escaped, leaked out from that pail, made way to open light, grew to be existent, tangible, touchable, speaking out my name. Regret may be its fate, but for now it lives alone, a question mark in tint, added to my list; my list of unexplained things: Sadness, blackness, irrelevance... what can come of this? I wish that meaning followed me in everything I made, but sometimes ‘having no meaning’ is the purpose after all. I paint a tangled ape, holding one cold blade, and this I can’t explain - but in this senseless image, I see hints of one fine memory, a trace of something nice; the bridge, the water, the leaf, the branch, the bird.



bottom of page