'UNREQUITED' ~ Edinburgh

Continued from here; In an exploration of the representation of sorrow in statues in Berlin and the relevance to The Pansy Project I have had a realisation that the sorrow I seek to explore is my own: Twenty years ago I sat drawing the Ross Fountain in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh (Above). I drew it over a period of days with the sole intention of ‘bumping into’ a nearby man who worked at the refreshment hut in the gardens. I still have the drawings which I had wanted to include in a portfolio that I had intended to use to get into Edinburgh Art College. I never ‘bumped into’ the man I had a crush on and I never applied to Edinburgh Art College. On returning to Edinburgh last year I passed the fountain and recalled the slightly sad story and the lonely desperation of myself as a younger man.

(Above one of the drawings of the Ross Fountain; 1987)

A new artwork arose from this memory; I proposed to donate a bench that would be dedicated to the memory and place in which I had sat twenty years earlier a plaque attached to the bench would explain the story behind the location. I sought permission to donate or temporarily place a bench in the park which I gained, though as yet I have been unable to find the right context for this work, as I wanted to exhibit the original drawings with a photograph of the bench.

(below the bench I sat on to draw the above in 1987)