Aaron Perkins: a 'Skilful Anemoi Purveyor’

Catalogue essay by Jude Anderson for Pronounced á-nem-oy, Jan Manton Gallery, 2-20 June 2021.

Aaron’s work for this exhibition arose from a Sunshine Coast residency on Kabi Kabi Country atop the Maroochy Sailing Club on Chambers Island. I live and work in Central Victoria on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Aaron and I had never met but over Aaron’s residency period we had two on-line conversations. The common ground we shared was a delight in play and playfulness with language and creating in the realms of the absurd. Aaron experiments with visual languages while I experiment in live performance. Aaron will suggest I was something of ‘a rudder’, steering him toward new territories. It’s why he’s invited me to share my thoughts with you. But Aaron was already on a new tack, I just held the tiller for a moment while he sniffed the wind.

Let’s just say that for this exhibition, Aaron, like Homer’s Odysseus, is a return adventurer who vested only with the language of winds, sails, and semaphore signs, seeks to share his island residency odyssey with others - while purveying the art of it.

Like Aaron, Let’s Play With Language!

I type ‘Anemoi winds’ into an online AI Slogan Generator.

It suggests I could describe Aaron as a ‘Skilful Anemoi Purveyor’.

To be honest, I couldn’t have found a more apt expression. Even a day blissfully lulled by the tack and jibe manoeuvres of Maroochy Sailing Club yachts wouldn’t have found me a better phrase. Aaron’s skill as an ‘Anemoi Purveyor’ lies in his deliberate, deeply considered visual techniques and his delight in offering the ancient languages of winds and sailing to speak playfully with us and invite us into his play.

Anemoi – ancient Greek for the four cardinal winds of the compass

Tack – using the wind to change course and take a new direction

Jibe – 1. turning the stern of the boat through the wind so that the wind changes from one side of the boat to the other side.

Mind you duck that ‘boom’!

Jibe – 2. A mocking remark.

Aaron doesn’t jeer, he prefers to laugh at himself and the crazy slippage of all sorts of signs and visual languages used to communicate. As a painter he is at the same time a ‘word nerd’ and ‘a language sceptic’.

“Anemoi Winds Is Job 1.”

“Anemoi – first class!”
“Anemoi – Winds That Get You Where You're Going.”

In his first week at the residency studio Aaron found an old ‘How to Sail’ book – a scientific sail book on racing. With ultramarine gouache he used the stylized semaphore language of flag triangles illustrated in the book to ‘write’ the name of the ancient Greek mythology wind gods – Anemoi. This led to a first-class exchange on our shared sense of inadequacy in the face of languages and sailing systems. I once helmed a Heron (a very small single hulled sailing dinghy) that set off the winning line guns of a national Sailboat championship. I was not sailing in the race. I was following the wind not the rules. In the context, I was a national embarrassment – but perhaps a good sailor.

Can You Tell Anemoi Wind From Butter?
Sure I can. I Never Eat Soggy Weetbix and prefer unsalted butter on hot toast.

If You Can't Beat Anemoi Winds, Join Anemoi Winds
Run with the tides and winds of instinct, impulse, and even a surreal idea.

Here’s a secret: Aaron’s Collective Invention (after Magritte), came about through my suggesting he use semaphore flags to instruct the tacking and jibing of a Maroochy Club sailor, even though he didn’t know Semaphore language. I’ve only ever seen Aaron on Zoom and even then - just his head and shoulders. His hair expressed a life lived in epic prevailing island winds. Aaron said that him communicating from the shoreline in Semaphore would be as ridiculous as an advertising tall tube man fly guy flapping about. I found that a really great idea. We then spoke about reflective ‘fish scales’ used on advertising billboards. He then thought of Magritte’s take on a mermaid. Aaron found a tall tube fly guy in the same ultramarine he uses for all his other works in the exhibition. Like a good sailor, he sniffed a wind of possibility, ran with it, and started planing.

Anemoi Winds - Enjoy When No-one's Around
Anemoi Winds, Your Way!
This could be the slogan for Aaron’s Maroochy residency. It is what his residency offered – more than a studio away from distractions, it was a place of unknowingness that immediately sharpened his instinct and intensified his practice. It produced a new visual language and play through which he proposes a dialogue and in which we can all delight.

---- N>E>S>W Never Eat Soggy Weetbix

Further slogans generated by the AI Slogan Generator from ‘Anemoi winds’ for for you to respond to once you’ve had fun tacking and jibing with Aaron’s exhibition.

Warm Like Rainforests And Fabulous Rooflines
Make It Fun Like It's Science
Shampoo For The Hair And Scalp
Sunscreen, Eyes Never Forget

It's That Simple.

Jude Anderson, 10 April 2021 ©