Ian Johnstone
The 23 Stab Wounds of Julius Caesar
The 23 Stab Wounds of Julius Caesar is a book by Ian Johnstone that was published a few years after his passing. The book contains texts by Geoff Cox, also known as Jhonn Balance, and Serena Korda. It was originally exhibited back in 2010 at London’s Horse Hospital. In his own words, ‘a series of 23 red ballpoint pen drawings on melamine celebrating individual blood consciousness, the in-between and the constant state of becoming’.
‘Displayed in the clutch of the screw’s harsh thrift. The cloth pulled away. The 23 wounds.’
Each drawing is so beautiful and intricate, and seeing the pictures from the exhibition makes them even better. There is a harshness, matched with a delicacy. Imagining the inside of the flesh: its complexity, its gore. The detail which reveals itself over and over. The tension, the blood, the vein. What opens? What breathes?
‘Displayed in the clutch of the screw’s harsh thrift. The cloth pulled away. The 23 wounds.’
Each drawing is so beautiful and intricate, and seeing the pictures from the exhibition makes them even better. There is a harshness, matched with a delicacy. Imagining the inside of the flesh: its complexity, its gore. The detail which reveals itself over and over. The tension, the blood, the vein. What opens? What breathes?
Alive in their own sense. Accompanied by two long pieces of music, The Levitating Moon Piece and Black Egg / Orpheus, by Daniel O’Sullivan. Slow and disorienting, a pace where you can breathe. Chanting…echoes…spindling edges. Shadows trying to push its way out of its own constraints. Unsettling, yet vast. Another hole, twisting, winding, searching. Flesh stretched to its optimum level always.
Geoff Cox’s poetic text is woven as a perfect accompaniment to the drawings. They open up the drawings into a whole other world. Where do you go when you stare deeply?
The whole text is incredible, but below are some of my favourite parts:
drawn on and into the skin
into the small stream, swallowed
at the brink of our voices
whose fault lines portray the terrors of it all
into the small stream, swallowed
at the brink of our voices
whose fault lines portray the terrors of it all
Geoff Cox’s poetic text is woven as a perfect accompaniment to the drawings. They open up the drawings into a whole other world. Where do you go when you stare deeply?
The whole text is incredible, but below are some of my favourite parts:
23 hawk beaks
23 varnished talons sporting a bright marigold fray of ant trail
23 fragments of a skull
23 curses hung round the neck of a scavenger
23 bells strung from the coop beast, tolled for the ghost of a headless ram
23 griefing scarves of clotted lace
23 copperplate annotations of a system beyond all understanding
23 blown eggshells sticky with seed
Sheets stripped from the body,
the waxen face,
the dumb mouth’s
ruby lips.
Blood spidered and baked on fissured rocks and bitter ceramic,
snatching and winding itself, turned iodine scar, spilt ichor fossil,
gorse trumpets choking lichen hymns into singing white.
Flesh bared and beaded, pared and worked open,
fern seed in red mist,
becomes then retreats in liquid shiver.
Baleful gaze lowers from fading pillar dark,
calcified limb there, waiting.
In the tower, the sheds of his husk are pinned to ivory boards,
the leaves of his waning traced in carmine nerve bulb,
Turps, paraffin, and muscle root excruciate.
The clot of him drains her,
bobbing just above the cast iron rim.
Nettle fur stitched with flint shard and wire, fly thread and tinder
into flags of remembrance, pinned on the smoked pine walls of the blooding place.
At their making, the silver sun rises over a bristling crop of wings,
and sets their rustling shadows to dance.
A stiff ruff of bleach scurf and reed, rank in the snout and lily by turns,
crawls and keens.
The yellow sun wheels and the red sun whirls, the blue sun cracks and the sea beaches kraken and carcass.
Serena’s afterword on Ian is also a beautiful addition to the book. It is always painful to lose someone, especially one who had an immeasurable influence upon your life. Ian seemed like a soul who always saw the intimacy of the world around him. The ability to express your inner world through art is such a powerful thing. Being unapologetic and true to who you are can be a difficult thing to maintain throughout your life. However, it seems Ian was bound to its limitless nature.
‘Ian is still here vibrating and making magic happen.’
Thank you V x
‘Ian is still here vibrating and making magic happen.’
Thank you V x