London Postcard: A Quiet Morning at The Wapping Project Art Space

By | 1 September 2013

Avenue Victor Hugo, cognac—
Lianne Fowler as Isabel
,’ the caption says.
And continues: ‘A French Picture Show’. So a movie still
I expect. Why such an image will
anchor one. Benediction. One is blessed.

It is the softness of the tones
& of the outlines—the slight rose of the flesh,
the mint cool of the T-shirt, planes
of cheek, forehead, & arms—hands
twisted beneath her chin, pressed

against her mouth—echoing, I suppose, our
own anxieties, resolving them
in an image of beauty, a balm
of solipsism & objectivity, of calm
& pity—for ourselves—selves we mend

with this distance & identification.
The fictive life of the tourist’? Or would
I feel this way about this image
anywhere? Lianne Fowler gauging something—
something within or without—tense, paying attention.

I attend to her in the idle moment. Not a film, it turns out,
but the exhibition of a story-boarded graphic novel, an
exercise in ’so funky, so French!’. Corn.
Still, I liked the photograph.

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