How not to disappear completely refers to the news story of Tom Leppard (the Leopard man of Skye), a hermit and former army officer who surrendered a period of self-imposed exile in 2008 to take up residence in an old people’s home in Birmingham, England. Within this, the project sets out to evacuate a number of hermit paintings from art history of their (former) residents. The thesis is thus understood through Mr Leppard’s own abandoned dream and the ironic truism that any genuine hermit would not be in the paintings and complicit with our interest in the first place.

What's left is a series of vacated shells which left to the viewer’s imagination offer up only a few details and clues. That which does remain offers a thin and tangential narrative, as if to affirm the eviction as a permanent feature. Dogs can be seen copulating and urinating in two of the pieces, whilst in another an abandoned satellite dish punctures the pastelised serenity of a cliffside retreat – a humorous sign of its defunct and misplaced presence in the context of time passing. Only once or twice is direct reference made to the leopard theme itself – a gentle reminder perhaps, like a graffiti tag, of a territory and identity defined.

Simon Willems 2010