Goudie Lynch
The Haggis -Marie-Laure Colson
The Haggis - Marie-Laure Colson
One should never impede artists from accomplishing what they have set their minds on. That's what I was thinking the evening I watched John Goudie Lynch cut open the stuffed stomach lining of a lamb - the haggis. Hanging on the wall behind him, a naked man glided over a landscape. One of John's paintings, unbelievably precise in its brush-work and evocative in its expression. I could hear the wind whistling in the ears of the flying man.
With one slash of the knife, he had sliced through the taught, pale skin and the bag opened to show its golden gleaming contents. We were seated round the table, motionless in that familiar wait - "food!" and a little jokingly - "what is that thing?" I verified that there was a fork to the left of my plate and not a tooth-brush.
The quality of the haggis relies on the stuffing and on the mood of the guests. In short, on what lies within the one who's eating and within that being eaten. The process is similar in regard to the paintings of John Goudie Lynch, if he'll excuse the comparison.
His characters have often strange vacant expressions, they are our masks and our mirror. They're frozen in some absurd act, yet somehow familiar. We get the impression that they're experiencing something we have been through ourselves, whether awake or in a dream. John opens up his world, the one in his imagination. His talent is in making it our own. The haggis by the way was excellent, thank you.
