‘A Door Opened’

In 2019 Aidan was invited to celebrate the works of Artist and Great War poet David Jones in the University of the Arts Londons exhibition ‘A Mythic Understanding: inspired by David Jones’. Aidan based his work on David Jones long form poem ‘In-Parenthesis’ and was greatly inspired by his ability to use literature, myth and folk lore to punctuate ideas and create a strong sense of place and atmosphere. In particular Aidan based his piece particularly on his use of the quote from the tale of Branwen in the fourth branch of the Mabinogion:

‘Evil betide me if I do not open the door to know if that is true which is said concerning it.So he opened the door…and when they had looked, they were conscious of all the evils they had ever sustained, and all the friends and companions they had lost and all of the misery that had befallen them, as if all had happened in that very spot;…and because of their perturbation they could not rest.’

creating patterns, designs and informing characters based on ancient Celtic artefacts and other added elements from other Welsh myths and stories, Aidan found that the beauty of David Jones’ writing lies in its ability to become richer on repeat readings. The world as described becomes more vivid, David Jones paints us a world using mythology and the more you research his extensive footnotes the higher the definition you can witness that world. Aidan tried to pay respect tothis by building a detailed artwork which could be viewed multiple times with new details discovered on repeat viewings.

The print featured in the Royal Society of Printmakers exhibition in Bankside Gallery and received the Birmingham Printmakers Prize.