Text by James Clow
When in the height heaven was not named, and the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, the serpent lies still, or does it writhe? Behold, it is covered in scales which form a pictographic cryptolect with blueprints for all creation. Are you washed in the blood?
We cry out “By day I cannot rest, by night I cannot lie down in peace.” Are we those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan? This holy Nagaraja and Nerodia clarkii, this great Jormungand with its body made stone, and word made flesh, is dying. Only look at the serpent that you might live - its form is an impenetrable rock and a body full of holes. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called Ummu-Hubur, she who formed all things. What a travesty! What an opportunity!
The Ophites, with their hidden knowledge, whisper of when he took the serpent as a garment, made himself in the likeness of Ningishzida, grasping the Asclepius rod, aching for healing. Salt! It comes from the purest waters and from the sea. And so this fragile Glycon also drinks about a cubit from the sea, yet remains with throat unslaked. Thus she demands an additional mechanism for the elimination of salt, simply by loss of parts: “thy members are hacked off thee.” Understand, that you might cast the spell of taking the spear to smite Apep, and claim “I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” This is the wisdom of Avicennia, which tastes strongly salty when licked, and often carries clearly visible deposits of salt crystals. Oh, taste and see! Efficacious indeed, but the exclusive function seems to be that of osmoregulation. Likewise, the unspeakable tears of the black-footed albatross have a concentration of up to 900 milliequivalents per litre, which is simultaneously the key of the philosophers, a reminder of justice, and a dreadful serpent breathing grievous war, for salt is the key in this art.
The installation by Nikolai Azariah deals with salt; the simple and everyday substance so familiar on the kitchen table or spread over a potentially icy street. Yet Nikolai’s work is anything but simple. It kaleidoscopically reveals more the longer one looks, comprising an aggregation of reference that has seemingly limitless potential and forming the work in a dynamic crystalline structure. Amongst a myriad of other subjects, Nikolai touches on Mesopotamian theology, molecular biology and mediaeval prophecy. This does not lead to a lack of focus, quite the opposite; Nikolai has an eye for resemblances, he has an ability to find similarity in difference and unify the incongruous. One is left with the overwhelming feeling of the potent but latent symbolic world of salt. The serpent figures Bablyonian creation and Christian destruction. The wound in the body brings forth its own light and suggests that you might reach out your hand and put it in the side. Do not doubt but believe.
Of course this is probably the result of anthropogenic changes, likely originating with Longinus, for it is written: ‘And the Lord stood upon Her hinder parts, He cut through the channels of her blood, and at once blood and water came out.’ That sacred fifth wound, from whose body the earth is made; gored in the thigh after a mountain goat jumped from a rock about 15 feet away. The convergence of distance and imminance by those who want to confirm the “real presence.” You are commanded, "Put thy mouth into the wound in My side." This strange conduct is easily justified, as a recent paper by Plotkin and Goddard (2013) explored the broad implications of this behaviour to humans and provided additional references for this and other fluid-feeding. I sucked the blood, and cried. But all this has come to pass so that what had been spoken might be fulfilled: earlier, the mountain goat had been licking members of the man’s group, eager for salt. This is the fountain of the true and perfect cleansing, the price of the true redemption and the house of the true habitation. So let the wind carry her blood into secret places, that we might drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore qualitatively assess the major classes of compounds available through puddling.
Such a cleansing fire and a flood - there’s power in the blood. And yet ye do not worship neither fear ye God, but vainly go astray and bow the knee to serpents. You err and falter, you are led awry and believe the serpent marks the future convalescence. You are blinded, as a goat, and in the image of Samael. Through Solve and through Coagula, I am dilated with years, I die and I am born again each day, descending into senescence and emerging from the chrysalis. But you wont believe it unless you see the wound. So come, peer inside and maybe then you will realise our internal configuration in the form of a serpent reveals our hidden generatrix. In these organs unconcealed, know that blood flows parallel to, but in the opposite direction from, the salt flow in the tubular gland.
The serpent is encrusted in scales; each one its own layered world of allusion. Nikolai lifts imagery from the esoteric and alchemical, from the scientific and diagrammatic, and, no doubt, from his own invention. The plethora of iconography begins to figure the extent of both the saline signification and the artist’s obsession with salt. There is a depth to the work, and one that is not easily summarised. The salt exists in a multitudinous form in the space, shifting between the coarse and the fine, the solid and the powdered, there to the touch and mediated by light. The dark blue lighting evokes the chaotic ocean of the genesis waters, a nautical twilight that engenders expectation. The installation asks questions with no answer and makes sanguineous statements in a kind of pseudo-liturgy. In this work, the crucible and the crucifix meet, salt pouring from the wound. Still, there are no known natural salt licks in the Olympic Mountains.
If one is to become the sacrificial leaf, one must obviously enhance the albedo and lifetime of marine boundary layer clouds by injecting them with sea salt aerosols. And it will rain. All the fountains of the great deep will burst forth, and the windows of the heavens will open; the messinian crisis will come to an end as the fluid is very simple. Simple enough that ‘he'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away the albatross's blood. So, at last, we shout “Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and the resultant fivefold in-situ increase of sea salt aerosols produces strong reductions in solar absorption locally.” It is not difficult to comprehend, I will cover the sun with a cloud, I will drench the land with your flowing blood.
