Martin Rieser was visiting Professor in the Digital Cultures Research Centre at the University of the West of England until 2017. He was employed by De Montfort University at The Institute of Creative Technologies as Professor of Digital Creativity 2007-2013, he was Professor of Digital Arts and Senior Teaching Fellow at Bath Spa University 2000-2007, was Principal Lecturer in Digital Media at Napier University in Edinburgh at the Department of Photography, Film, and Television 1997-2000. In post as Senior Lecturer in Electronic Media at UWE Bristol between 1986 – 1998 He set up one of the first post-graduate courses in the country in Digital Art and Imaging at the City of London Polytechnic, now London Metropolitan University 1980-85. He studied Printmaking at Goldsmith’s and Atelier 17 with S.W Hayter. Further biographical details are available at www.martinrieser.com
Girl with a white Dog
Lucian Freud 1951
The man has a cruel eye for truth.
Kitty is as wretched as she has ever been,
her tender breast offered equally
to her future child and to the artist.
The dog knows nothing,
snoozing faithful in her lap.
Her hand protects from his gaze’s violation;
she can scent the other women on his skin,
at night, when he gathers her remains
under the sheets and inflicts more damage.
© Martin Rieser
Two Cats
Suzanne Valadon 1918
My two cats are not happy.
They sit all day lost on the table,
shell-shocked soldiers
paws tucked in by their white chests.
From here the shelling is a distant rumble,
although the mice are scratching
their ears will only bend
towards the terrible concussions.
I too am ignored, as surplus to the time,
so I sit and paint their situation
with all the colours of my grief.
© Martin Rieser
Garden Path with Chickens
Gustav Klimt 1917
This war drags on,
which is why my refuge
between the pansies and hollyhocks
is so dear to me, and why
the ivy-swathed summer house
is where I sit out these last days
here between life and death,
expecting old times to return
when this cauchemar is over,
but knowing that the chickens
will come home to roost
and nothing now can ever mend.
© Martin Rieser
Tiger in a Tropical Storm
Henri Rousseau 1891
Messieurs c’est une vraie crise:
the stage machinery blowing sideways.
All my meticulously rendered plants
flying eastwards in a wild wind.
The stage-tiger is wide-eyed
clawing at the furniture
just to stay alive, to stay
where the artist has decreed
he must abide this storm.
Il est tout une noble patience
et sauvagerie fixe,
une mâchoire ouverte de crocs terribles,
but, like us all, forever
complaining of the weather.
© Martin Rieser
l’Homme au Chapeau Melon
Rene Magritte 1965
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
but sometimes freedom flies by very fast
and sometimes it blocks out the future
with a rush of white feathers
Je vous prie d’être assuré que
le mirage est aussi réel que ton chapeau
et ton costume parfait
si incomparable et sans plis!
© Martin Rieser