This Fabulous Shadow Only the Sea Keeps is a writing project by Cigdem Asatekin, initially written in 2017 as a graduate thesis for SVA’s MFA Art Writing program.

The first chapter begins on the wavy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean with a whaling ship and its crew tracking a whale, as set up by the scene in The Whalers, painted by English romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1845. The titles of the sections in this chapter follow a chromatic connection between the stories and the painting itself, forming a bond between the impressions galvanized by the painting and its colours.

The second chapter tells the story of Diver, a sketch-like painting by the American artist Jasper Johns from 1963. The sections take their titles from simple gestures and acts found in painting process like “sweep” and “stretch,” following the footsteps of Diver; which is comprised of, more than all the other painterly elements, gestures.

The third chapter, “The Sleeper,” takes its name and origin from Henri the douanier Rousseau’s 1897 painting The Sleeping Gypsy, in which he depicts a lion next to a sleeping woman with a colorful striped dress and a mandolin, on a full moon night. In this chapter, the section titles come from the figures the viewer can find in the painting, paying homage to Rousseau’s style as a figurative and naïve master.

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Cigdem Asatekin MacInnis is an artist and writer based in Toronto and sometimes Istanbul, interested in creating and telling stories about art. She likes to wander in the intersection of literary fiction and art writing, inspired formally by interdisciplinary studies, fantasy fiction, and the Victorian era; and thematically by artistic representations of melancholia, the Rückenfigur, myths, and the Pre-Raphaelites. She is working on a book that involves an ancient codex, a young poet, and the end of the world. She might actually write it one day.

MacInnis has been writing, editing, and translating for art spaces, collectors, curators, and artists professionally. Her critical writing appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Degree Critical, Art Spiel, private collections and catalogues, and more. She is open for commissions at cigdem dot asatekin at gmail dot com.

As a painter, MacInnis once asked for artist Chris Martin’s advice for creative block. In following it prudently, she has been a recluse for years and has last shown work in a group exhibition in 2018. Since then, she painted tiny pictures of cats and depressive self portraits, hoarded ideas, and abandoned projects, including a human size pencil lamp.