brendan graham dempsey

multi-media artist (writing, visual art, music)

my work focuses on

the intersection of art

and meaning-making.

today, when traditional, inherited mythologies no longer provide orientation and a sense of identity, I'm interested in how creativity and imagination can step in to fill that void...

what I mean by this isn't some trite suggestion that a little more journaling and a few watercolors can help us all keep that gnawing nihilism at bay.

I think it's possible that a wholly renewed and reinvigorated spirituality, one that is honest with reality, robust, sublime, and deeply edifying, waits upon our waking to this idea: that each of us has within us a sleeping cosmos, a profound treasury of organic poetry no less suited to expressing our imagined Sacreds than any of the traditional religious systems that have arisen on the Earth.

the only real difference is that those systems' ancient symbols are growing less and less potent by the day, whereas the wellspring of your imagination is as up-to-date with your authentic intuitions of Meaning and Truth as your most recent breath.

unfortunately, the hobgoblins of conservative tradition and superficial money-making have conspired to quash this realization. we are presented with a dispiriting dichotomy: either the respectable resignation to a meaningless, materialist universe, or radical conversion to some established, antiquated Writ.

the notion of artfully expressing your own experience of sacredness—in your own words, in your own symbols—remains a horizon to which some are only now awakening.

explore my forays into these topics through my BLOG, BOOKS, and VIDEO ESSAYS.

THE ICON

books

all of my works are part of a canon called the Icon,

published in both standard and critical editions.

VOL. I

STANDARD VERSION

this edition presents the complete poem:

I. DEATH, II. DESCENT, and III. RESURRECTION

in a simple, reader-friendly format, along with basic notes.

GOD

Palimpsest Press, 6" x 9", 570 Pages, Black+White

more

NEW CRITICAL VERSION (NCV)

the NCV presents the Icon as a spiritual canon in the form of a critical edition. In addition to the poem, then, are hundreds of pages of supplementary material.