Blog Archives

Blog Archives

Blog Archives

Blog Archives

Over the past two decades, Carl Gopalkrishnan's artwork has garnered international recognition for his ability to forge meaningful connections between art & literature and the complex dynamics driving international law, intervention and global conflict. Carl transforms familiar cultural artefacts into new myths so legal and military minds can explore the creative, subconscious and emotional stories that shape their doctrines of war & peace. (Photograph copyright © Amanda Brown 1992)

Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal) Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal)

Open Letter: “Blake is for everyone”. The Blake Society’s Open Letter to The Guardian, 4th March 2024 UK

I was very moved by this open letter. It’s not often you feel that a talk you gave or paper you wrote really connected with anyone. I feel very welcomed by The Blake Society, and I really think many people of different cultural and faith background throughout the Asia-Pacific would enjoy Blake’s ideas and find gems of thoughts very aligned with Eastern spiritual mythologies and cultures.

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Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal) Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal)

New Publishing: In VALA 4 ‘War+Peace’, William Blake untangles complexity & our 2022 UK Defence Doctrine, Nov 2023, London, UK

My visual essay in VALA, the journal of The Blake Society in London, is called "A Field Manual for A Lost Soldier: William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as a Course in Complexity". Their theme is War & Peace. Marriage can help us unravel the complexity of our times. Military leaders also need reminding that limiting their creativity to technologies to kill blinds them to the shape-shifting qualities of Blake’s God and Satan.

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Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal) Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal)

Preview: Some new canvases from my VALA Journal essay (War & Peace), November 2023

This canvas is one of 4 images I painted for my visual essay in VALA 5. Written for an international audience, it is a comparative reflection on William Blake's rather complex 1790s poem ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ and the ‘UK Defence Doctrine 2022’ (UKDD), together with some philosophical classics which together create an alternate lens on new capabilities amidst current global, geopolitical tensions in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific of 2023…I hope it makes a positive contribution at a very challenging time for us all.

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Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal) Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal)

AUKUS Chronicles/Studio Notes: New Drypoint Print, Orc in a Bar in Richmond

“William Blake’s character Orc and I did a metaphorical bar hop and imagined our way into a bar in Richmond on a typically cold, wet winter Melbourne evening. The windows were steamed up from the kitchen and after many whisky shots we were both worse for wear. Back in my real-time studio of course, it was gin & tonics…So, in my imaginary studio conversations, Orc was in verbal stream-of-consciousness about how men saw their violence as crucial to their hero’s journey…

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Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal) Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal)

AUKUS Chronicles/Studio Notes: Drypoint print of my ‘imaginary’ meeting with William Blake’s Orc in a Melbourne bar

This is a new drypoint print about my ‘imaginary’ meeting with William Blake’s Orc from his poem America a Prophecy (1793). In my process of painting Australia a Prophecy in 2021, I engaged with William Blake’s poem America a Prophecy and that poem’s main character Orc. The following is a transcript from my 2023 talk to The Blake Society in January 2023. I used the term “imaginary conversation” in a performative way to bring my process alive in that talk and to walk the audience through the concept of a focused imagination as a ‘doorway’ into the visionary processes…

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Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal) Carl Gopalkrishnan (aka Gopal)

My talk to The Blake Society in London on my painting ‘Australia A Prophecy’, 25th Jan 2023

I was invited to give an illustrated talk to the Blake Society in London in January about my painting Australia A Prophecy in January 2023 around my connections with ORC, the fictional character from his 1793 poem America A Prophecy. Blake’s poem inspired me explore the fictional, metaphorical and mythological dynamics occurring in the ‘Indo-Pacific’ where I live.

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