My interview with Munro Galloway

Iva Gueorguieva shares her impressions of the artist Munro Galloway's works on paper.

The black swan tucks her head,

Immobile.

Grey currents hiss pressing her breast.

The black feathers knit a shield against the gale.

I reach gently tracing the soft gray horizon

holding my breath 

so as not to disturb her effort.

Studio of Munro Galloway

I hold seven in my arms. Seven rectangles of yellowed newsprint crisscrossed by lush black ink marks. I run my finger over their arching slithering bodies. Like black serpents they slip in and out of the grip of my gaze. A cloud, a ship, a swan, the curve of a beloved’s neck, my mind races as my fingers softly lift each piece of paper and slide it away to reveal the one bellow. The paper feels dry like autumn leaves. Brittle and cinched along the edges of each mark. It received the ink and cradled it. It let some of its moisture join the ink as it dried. The absorption, the negotiation: it’s all visible the way the process of deposition, evaporation and transformation marks the dry beds of the ancient lakes in the Eastern Sierras.

When not in my arms, Munro Galloway’s ink drawings of chairs and clouds hang in many rows in his studio forming a grid. They evoke birds, they are musical, they are relaxed, they keep going. Every time I visit my head tilts and I am beholden. The motion is hypnotic. Each is distinct. I stop and notice the curves of a ship bow or the twirl of a flamenco dancer completing a sequence. My mind wonders as my eyes, seduced, trace each stroke from beginning to end. I feel the weight of the ink slowly leave each bristle in love, eager to lay upon the fibers of the paper. I understand Munro’s patience and sense his pleasure.

These drawings are free of intention. There is no “fixing”. They flow with the vitality of ink before it became calligraphy or images depicting landscapes, people and animals. Munro is bringing us back to a relationship free of control and intention. The ink loves the brush and equally cherishes the paper. It freely moves from one to the other. Munro’s drawings exist in that flow state and grant the viewer that pleasure of simply being.

Some marks reach the edge and suddenly turn away, finding their way back in, while others move right past, their bodies sliced, truncated by the absence. There is nothing to receive the caress and it disappears. The edge of the paper is so sharp, so utterly final. I note that finality in contrast with the seemingly pulsating edges of the strokes. The ink sits so softly, the paper receives it so completely, the edge is a place of touch, a sensual and infinite space of intimacy and tenderness.

To see all of them on a wall is to see a population. A gathering. A murder of crows.

I reach the seventh. The wrinkled surfaces of the ones below push it up. It hovers. I sense the air. These drawings feel like breaths.  I tune into the movements of Munro’s brush as it touches, drags and lifts repeatedly. I hear Henry Cowell’s piano compositions, the piano keys heavy and dissonant. Cowell’s instructions for how to perform The Banshee specify the need for two performers, one to hold the damper pedal down, while the second performer manipulates the strings inside the piano. To replace the performer holding the damper pedal by a piece of wood, though efficient, misses the point. The difference for me is that though continuous, “holding” is not even when done by a person who breathes. The holding lightens even if barely perceptibly. The evenness is modulated.  It’s the breath that makes Munro’s motions both rhythmic and modulated.

The stack sits on my thighs, and I listen to the faint rustling of the paper and think of a forest. They weigh nothing perceptible. How can so little presence produce so much effect/affect? I look again at the tip of a single stroke of black ink and exhale.