Wallace Bain

Absolute Beginners, published in 1958, is a tale told by a protagonist who is deeply immersed in the pop culture of his time, the fast-evolving fashion and pop culture of jazz clubs and coffee bars of late 1950s London, a city on the cusp of profound and irreversible cultural and social change. This is the exact point in popular culture when, as Ed Vuillamy of the Guardian says, in reference to teenagers, “the kids were taking over”, a decade in which the “mod” sensibility with its love of sharp, well-tailored clothes and modern jazz is defining the essence of what is “cool”.  The protagonist, who remains nameless throughout the story like the lead in Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow Up , is a dandy photographer tripping through the chic London streets in his “Roman suit”, an allusion to the tailored jackets favored by the new “mod” youth sub-culture, wielding his Rolleflex, and snapping at arresting scenes, ever hungry for style. The narrative style certainly has plenty of propulsive en...

While out walking in a Yonghe park, i sought shelter from the intense noontime sun. Under the shade of a mature broad-leaved tree, my eye rested on the shimmering discs of warm distilled light, gently golden at its borders. It gave me the sensation of looking upwards at rose-shaped stained glass windows of a cathedral. Although I didn't have the intense suffering and aching soul of a pilgrim, I felt, in that instant a certain peace, the fleeting inspiration any creator of art must feel in order to continue onwards and closer to their full potential; a glimpse through a portal. I've never adhered to any religion per se, but just then, I was reminded of the words, "perfect love drives out fear" from the Book of John. I reflected on my move to Taiwan, a long journey into the east, and it brought to mind the idea that travelling east, towards the dawn, "reserving the arrow of time", to embrace "the fountain running......", was a move of some signific...

Mary Quant Exhibition in Taiwan / 2022.05.28-2022.08.28 Mary Quant embarked on her world-changing career in fashion around 70 years ago, opening her first boutique, Bazaar, in Chelsea, London, in 1955, amid the charred surrounding of a post-war bleakness. Yet, her fashions transcend the decades and couldn’t be more refreshing and relevant today, in 2022. On the two occasions I have attended her retrospective, titled Mary Quant – A Fashion Revolutionary – staged at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and running from 26/05/2022 to 28/08/2022, there has been ample evidence that visitors, many of them young women who could clearly be called “fashionable”, have enthusiastically engaged with the exhibits, photographing mannequins and dolls on display and standing for extended periods watching the footage and listening to the testimony to the pioneering fashions of Mary Quant.  As well as resonating through the ages, the clothes on show here, along with the verve and playfulness with which Quant...

  A wasteland of chalk where Not even weeds grow, destruction is so new, A door frame opens on to a plain of rubble,  is a vestige of a community, And mirror to a skeletal soul, Compelled to move on.  Gaunt walls remain Marginal existence is edged out, To fall back on a vagabond soul, A nomad I am not, But the home I cling to was crushed, I stare at the battered paintwork. Dark shadow incise walls and  Under eaves and balconies Iron grilles are fine etching The battered pink door is a canvas in my mind Slashing marks, swooping blade  Gauges out a powdery salmon underlayer  from a violet chalky paste  A paper lantern hangs under a lintel, Flimsy in its promise Mineral plain of ochrous soil, crumling clay and conceet, Ruined stucco moulding Cracks appear and the thinnest dry grasses and wort  Make their advance. The funereal is all pervading,

All sides entrap fragility, There embrace is slate grey, In seasons which spare the light, My sadness of exile. The walls I built are my own folly, I built them round my soul, They shut out hope and striving, Which they stifle in the long days of bare branches. The grey walls taunt me, Callous in their accusation, They are blank pages in a diary,  Hiding, my soul faces inward. At times, in lilac spring,  Bloom drops onto sunlit grey, And the emptiness is warmed, Born of morning light, grey is benign. Lit so faintly, there is a seed, Showing me the limestone massifs, In travels past, a new stanza,  Hope stirs the new forest leaves.