Aotearoa, October 2020

Many of the visuals I’ve been working on since COVID struck have unintentionally portrayed being enclosed, one way or another. It’s obvious to me now where my head has been.

Obvious to everyone that we’re all, the entire world, trapped within walls of our homes, cities, countries and ultimately ourselves.

Managing that sense of claustrophobia has, for me at least, revolved around creativity. Hanging on to that line that leads to the outside.

Throughout 2020 my wife and I have been house-sitting around Te Ika a Maui, hindered of course by the various levels of lockdown. Perhaps this further ‘encircling’ within other people’s homes added to the sense of unease.

Creating visuals complements my writing. When my brain is full of words and congested, I turn to graphics, photography and asemic writing.

These four visuals were huge fun. The roping around of circles and ellipses felt liberating. It was, in a sense, musical, lyrical, physically uplifting. They flowed with hand-on-mouse, like dancing a waltz, twirling a lasso or swaying in a warm wind.

Contrasting them with the sharp-edged shapes and linking them into ‘waterfalls’ and ‘steps’ coming from somewhere and going somewhere temporarily shook off that claustrophobia.

 

 

 

 

Keith Nunes (Te Ika a Maui) has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2019 and the Pushcart Prize, and he won the 2017 Flash Frontier Summer Writing Award. He’s had poetry, fiction, haiku and visuals published around the globe. He creates to stay sane, to help him breathe.