from a distance (2008)

“from a distance” uses William Faulkner’s novel “As I Lay Dying’ as a starting point. Major originally read and annotated this text at the age of 17 and 17 years later has revisited it. The edited text is interposed with images culled from Brownie annuals.

At 17 the artist often found herself unable to speak and returned repeatedly to Faulkner’s novel. The piece is an attempt both to equivocate this loss, the failure of language to adequately describe experience, and a celebration of the power of language to translate experience through narrative.

Catherine Somzé writes:
“(…), in the series “from a distance” printed illustrations from a popular publication are put into poetical ‘play’ with words. Both manipulated and staged anew, “from a distance” is not only a demystifying reflection on the gender politics of youth movements and more generally of children’s education – a kind of ideology-critique – it is also a poetic comment on the tradition of book annotation, that is, an intervention whereby a text is both appropriated and provided with new personal meanings.”
From the Minigraph Essay “Everything is…” which accompanied Major’s Solo Show at Streetlevel Gallery in Glasgow in 2008.

The series is available as limited edition prints. Please see Editions.

The project is available as a Print on Demand book through: ‘from a distance’ Book