AUKUS Chronicles/Studio Notes: Painting the ‘Indo-Pacific’ through the 18th century lens of English poet William Blake
Australia A Prophecy, 95x71cm. Acrylic painting, screenprint, 22k gold leaf on 16 x 7 x 5 inch stretched canvas panels set on board. Copyright Carl Gopalkrishnan 2021. First published in Critical Military Studies Journal, Rutledge UK, June 2022. URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23337486.2022.2088082?src=
I painted this in 2021 in and out of the lockdowns. I’ve worked very closely with William Blake’s poetry over many years, and I felt that the true spirit of William Blake and his concern for the times he lived in remains unappreciated today. It became a sort of visual parable in the same vein as my portrait of Professor Caslav Brukner from 2012 and my poster session for Hitting The Target at the University of Surrey back in 2012. In painting this, I worked again from my notes from years ago when I studied Blake’s poem America A Prophecy, and it inspired a similar lens onto the Indo-Pacific and the characters engaged in the military and political tensions in the region I live in today. Within my overall narrative arc of the ‘shadow dance’, our subconscious is telling us stories that we do not heed - the personal and the political - and they interweave.
Artist Statement:
’Australia a Prophecy’
My painting re-imagines William Blake’s poem America A Prophecy (1793) exploring Australia in the Indo-Pacific. I followed a similar journey to Blake, exploring my own spiritual and mythic values, in the political theatre across decades. Blake’s character, Orc challenges our view of what’s right and wrong. His words alongside A.Van Jordan’s poem Westworld and American Gigolo (2013) bridge two centuries. Without mistakes we’d have no story.
Australia A Prophecy asks if military leaders see themselves as Orc the Saviour or – like the Hindu God Shiva – Orc the Destroyer of Worlds.
Sixteen rectangles, like mobile phones, symbolise our fragmented world. Mixed techniques of a screen-printed page from Revelation, and social media cues, juxtapose the past with contemporary commentary. The 22-carat gold leaf on text and images, impregnates a spiritual energy that illuminates our soul consciousness.
Prophecy is both a warning and a navigation system. How do we know who is the enemy? We look for heroes. Their flaws make it easier to graft our hopes and fears onto them. Jesus ponders the fiery hunting dogs. Art leads us to examine our views about war, through spirituality. Everyone in conflict feels they are right, that they are God, that they are Orc.
Studio Photos from 2021 Carl Gopalkrishnan. A crucifix made up of 6 panels which I painted around 2011 and then put into storage became the “sour dough” starter for a painting during the 2021 pandemic lockdowns. I was affected by the sudden tensions in the ‘Indo Pacific’ region where I live, and the rhetoric which, as an Australian of half-Chinese heritage, I felt very dismayed with. It seemed to offer a conclusion to those 6 canvases which began with 9/11 and then ended in the Indo Pacific.
