“On Tuesday 17th of March 2020, I was in Llandudno Junction in North Wales. Boris had just shut the pubs and I realised that I could no longer morally roam from place to place the way I had been doing.”
In one of the first artistic responses to the current global climate we have seen, these new works are a seismograph to the silent rumblings of our connected thoughts and feelings, transcribed into a visual tapestry of poetic form. Known for roaming from place to place on foot Gommie’s practice is centred around using the poem as a vehicle for weaving together individual and national notions picked up on these journeys. “I see all my work as simply marking time. Be it with words or colour. That can be a political calamity, any person I meet saying something funny or moving, or me simply being lost (which is often). I try not to think about the broader meanings too much. I just try and be present with every map. If it moves me – it goes on the map.”
Taking government sanctioned daily walks Gommie began mapping out the shape of our new way of life. Noting fragments of language coming to the fore and engaging more with life online. “I had some beautiful and hilarious conversations with people from all over the world about their experiences of lockdown. I realised how romantic so many of us are. How funny and silly and poetic we all have the ability to remain during abrupt change.”
In a global moment of disruption and adaption Gommie’s work attests to our humanity. He says, ‘I’m riding the waves of the present moment and it feels right.’