I BEG YOUR PARDON

As the immortal Greek God, Dionysus, who has lived right through human history, there have been plenty of times where I have been short of cash, bored and / or in need of excitement.

To raise money for my continued travels during the Middle Ages as Dionysus undercover, spreading joy and ritual madness to royals and villeins alike, I had to think on my feet.

One of the available ruses of the time was to become a Pardoner.

A Pardoner was a medieval representative of the Church, delegated to raise money by soliciting offerings and granting indulgences, or pre-written pardons for particular sins, to people who wanted to repent for the sin they had committed. Realistically they didn’t want the evil (or just slightly moronic) actions that they had performed on Earth to affect their chances of cruising through the pearly gates and sitting pretty in Heaven when the time came.

Along with receiving the pre-written indulgence, the penitent would make a donation to the Church by giving money to the Pardoner. Many Pardoners were honest men, beholden to Christ who would see the money go to its rightful place, the Church, even if the Church themselves then spent it in a questionable manner.

Some Pardoners, like me, were decidedly less honest and pocketed the money meant for the Church which was then, in my case, used to continue my travels and further a lifestyle that was debauched beyond my means.

Before the Information Age, it was easier to con people and swan into villages and larger settlements pretending to be a man of God. Confidence was the key…that and looking fucking fantastic. Many dodgy Pardoners looked pretty shitty and as time went on and the con became more widely known with dodgy Pardoners even being written about in seminal works of the time, people became more and more difficult to hoodwink.

But you know what? I was the full package. I had stolen various articles of clothing from actual religious pros who would often travel alone and were easy pickings. I purchased false documentation to support my claims, amassed a load of fake ‘relics’ to flog and developed a kind of faux-Latin, ‘speaking in tongues’ act in my work, which had people lapping up my every word and begging me to absolve their sins and put them at the top of Saint Peter’s heavenly guest list once again.

My clients were glorious: some were horrific, some tragic but all had secrets and a palpable anxiety that I took advantage of. For many, the sins that needed absolving were petty in nature and the sinners would receive my love and support, often after they’d furnished me with a beverage or ten…and only after I had received my fee of course.

Some of them had done terrible things and would have their comeuppance, I would make sure of that. They may have paid for God’s forgiveness, but they came up short of receiving mine. As a god in my own right, I would often metre out a divine justice of my own carefully measured against the sins committed.

In this new series of work, I will enshrine the people who I encountered and the sins they were so desperate to have absolved. The collection is inspired by fake relics created by chancers, like myself, throughout world history.

Working with ceramics, I will cast a contemporary eye on old sins and, by extension, the lives of people I encountered during my time in the Middle Ages.

This collection is effectively brought to you by the symptoms of bipolar disorder and will also provide clarity on how bipolar disorder can affect the mind and how it can be used artistically in a much more positive manner, since getting a bit of bad rep throughout history and in contemporary society.

Enjoy x