The Pennywhistle Studies

I’ve never had a penny to my name. This should come as no surprise, since I grew up in South Africa where we use rands and cents, of course. Yet, the “penny” was ubiquitous, embedded in South African vernacular. We say, every penny counts, a penny for your thoughts, in for a penny in for a pound; we hum along to “feed the birds, tuppence a bag”; we know all about penny wise pound foolish, penny pincher, and, of course, pennywhistles.

As a small kid, I never made the connection between the penny and pennywhistle, though. Pennywhistle was just the name of a thing: just another made-up name for another thing, like my own name, to be accepted unquestioningly. Names seemed to exist in and of themselves, in relation perhaps only to the named thing. They really didn’t seem to refer to something outside of themselves. Only later did the penny drop, as I happened upon the connection between the erstwhile price of this musical instrument and its name.

Nevertheless, to me the vibrant charge of the pennywhistle was apparent all along. Even the more jubilant melodies unsettle, encapsulating both a defiant longing and a sensibility for fun, in spite of it all. This simple instrument has a surprising capacity for paradox. The Pennywhistle Studies, the series of paintings exhibited at Irreverent Jive, dance along to a similar tune: raw and incomplete, a high-wire act, gestural, quick, improvisational. Each note (or gesture), seemingly spontaneous, is precarious and brittle, on the verge of collapse.

Historically, the pennywhistle was also an instrument without a formal stage. Or rather, its stage was the dusty street corner: temporary, furtive, feral. Pennywhistle melodies retain an instinctive, stubborn yearning for freedom, light-heartedness and perhaps naivety too, in the best sense of the word: a kind of playful irreverence. It’s the antidote when we start taking ourselves too seriously.

The accompanying images are a selection from The Pennywhistle Studies.

All paintings:

Oil on Mylar
21 x 14,8 cm