IMAGES DRIFT

Images drift up from where they have been hiding. Think of dark water, in a lagoon, at dusk; think of reflections on the surface, broken, reforming—reflections of the trees, reflections of houses, reflections of people by the shore, reflections of you, looking at and into the water and thinking of reflections; think of large unknown fish; think of a drowned thing, rising. This is the way they drift up.

They arrive without being summoned. If you look at the dark long enough you might see such images. If you close your eyes you will see them anyway, possibly in reversed colours, black for white, green for red. As you pause between sleep and waking, you may see them. They're at your shoulder, they're in the corner of your eye, they're in the corner.

Where do they come from? They come from the land of images, which is in this world and not in this world, which is in your mind and not in your mind. These images are obviously messengers—they come back again and again, as if you didn't read their message the first time, as if they have to return over and over, scratching not at your door but at your eyes. Listen to me, hear me, see me! Pay attention!

But it's as if they speak in a foreign language.You need to translate them, but that doesn't seem possible: their language is not known. There must be a grammar, there must be a vocabulary, but neither of these can be discovered: there's no dictionary.

Do they have your best interests at heart, these images ?You aren't sure about that. What are your best interests? What is a heart? In this twilit, shifting landscape, such concepts escape you.

What can you do but set the images down? Draw them, paint them, work them up, work them over, work them out.Work them out of your system. Make something of them. Hope that you can read them that way.

But read what? If Ac images are messengers, what is the message they carry? We are what has been inscribed, they say. Inscribed on you. We are where you have been. We are where you are.

Look at us. Look into us. Make of us what you can.
Here you are.

Margaret Atwood (2006)
Introduction to Robbins, Kadee (2006). Peter Doig: Works on Paper. Italy: Rizzoli.