John Duckworth
Cell phones, the Internet,Twitter, Facebook—modern life seems (for better and for worse) to be a constant barrage of stimuli. A recent visit to artist John Duckworth’s studio on Johns Island proved a welcome respite from the mayhem. We 
caught up about life and his latest art projects, and I got the opportunity to intimately experience his most recent video installation/ performance piece, recently screened and performed at the Threshold Theater.
You may recognize some of his work—like the abstract landscape photographs (that look like paintings) that adorn the walls of FIG restaurant. Or perhaps you caught his most recent show, Decade, with frequent collaborator, Kevin Harrison, at Michael Mitchell Gallery on Upper King Street. Duckworth has a love affair with nature and his goal is often to preserve the memory of what it was like to be in that particular landscape at that season, in that light, and at that moment. “As I remove the details, the work begins to reside somewhere between realism and abstraction and the images become much more universal,” he says. These images, blurred with motion and bands of often startling color, resonate with a meditative calm. 
And meditation is fundamental to both Duckworth’s life and his creative process. He talks about what the Buddhists call the monkey mind, or those unsettled, restless, capricious, inconstant, confused, indecisive, and uncontrolled thoughts we all experience. He says for him meditation “isn’t about eliminating the endless chatter, but about finding calm and balance among it.” Duckworth’s recent body of work, Tunes & Whispered, combines painting, photography, screen printing, and drawing, with elements of Eastern iconography to create rich, graphic pieces, layered with imagery and a subtle narrative. “The images are layered the way thoughts and feelings are … the pieces are a blend, and often have more going on than the most obvious layer suggests,” he explains.
AWAKE, Duckworth’s newest video installation/ performance, provides yet another glimpse into what makes this artist tick. The latest version is 11 minutes of ambient sounds and one-second video clips—scenes of everyday life, both frenetic and calm—shot exclusively with that ever-present friend (and sometime foe), the iPhone. As the video plays, Duckworth is seated, eyes closed, meditating, just in front of the projection, with the images washing over him. Despite what’s happening all around and in the presence of those of us who sit watching, he really seems to lose—or perhaps find—himself in the moment. “It’s very difficult in our busy lives to process all of the information that constantly bombards us and to make sense of it,” he says afterwards. “So for me, to sit and meditate is a way to process the information. This video piece became the canvas of that process.”
The take away: stop, find your breath, wake up, and be present in the moment!
words: Jessica Dyer
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