This is the first of a series of blogs which will give some background to the paintings and drawings, in my forthcoming exhibition. They were inspired by a 1000 kilometres walk in Spain, called the Via de Plata.  I recorded my experiences first hand with drawings and sketches en route and wrote a daily blog which can be read at the bottom of the home page on my website www.dandowling-artist.com. However, the final images would not exist without the physical process of walking 1000 kilometres, without the people I met, and without the amazing experiences, together they make one piece of work.

The Via de Plata is one of the many Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes.  It is by far the longest and runs from Seville, in the south, to Santiago de Compostela, in the north, almost the total length of the Iberian peninsula. The original Caminos were walked by the Celts in those halsian pre-Roman days.  These ancients followed lines of energy, ley lines, using the old magic and the old knowledge. Their final destination was not the present day Santiago de Compostela, but the mystical Finisterre. Finisterre, as the name implies, was thought to be the end of the world.  Our ancestors stood on the very edge of the known world and watched their sun-god disappear into the west every evening, only to reappear in the east every morning.  By any standard, this must have been an amazing experience.  Did they accept this as their reality or were they deliberately exploring ways to obtain insight into their world by parting the veil between the physical and the spiritual.

Is this the reason why people have always, and nowadays increasingly more so, walked Caminos?  Do they want to step out of the routine of their life and walk to the limit of their reality and peer over the edge?   I think this is feasible and perfectly possible to do so, provided you are prepared to leave the paraphernalia of everyday life behind.

This was certainly my experience on walking across the Meseta with my friend Victor.  The Meseta is a high central plateau, ranging from 400 to 1000 metres in height, and occupies 40% of Spain’s land mass.  We spent an amazing few weeks walking across a  vast landscape, under massive skies, enjoying endless discussions and putting life and reality to rights.  For me, because there was nothing even remotely familiar and nothing to cling on to, my reality, quickly, became living in the moment. I was definitely somewhere else. Of course, this can only be appreciated in hindsight. Victor was living in a reality nearby, possible closer to the edge.

The three paintings illustrated are from a series of five.  They will be the smallest pieces in the exhibition, but depict vast spaces, with tiny figures walking through their lives.

The exhibition will open on Thursday 1 December 2016, in the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, 216 Falls Road, Belfast BT12 6AH.