The Unfurling
Coming back from my Residency with Atelierele Scânteia in Romania, I reminisce over the piece that I left there. Before leaving for the month of September, I remember thinking about abrupt endings, about how no matter how vigilant you may be, that rug that you step on manages to slip and shift with no warnings.
As the world continues to remind us of its cruelty, we begin to force a silver lining, even if it ceases to exist. I used this month to simply let that fear roam freely, unleashed for once.
What I began to see was synchronicities, links and a lot of death. The moth's wings stay intact while its body crumbles to dust, what used to hold its delicate organs and fragile wings is no longer.
As I gathered my energy to paint, I saw both the end and the beginning as one, no matter where I start is where I'll end up. The circle, the spiral, the thumb. We believe that we have control, or at least we think we do. We wake up with arrogance and sleep with certainty. In one of my studio visits, I had a conversation that struck me, "Using the word humanize is such a megalomaniacal way of thinking." Animals and living beings of all sorts don't need to be closer to us; it's simply the opposite, we are not above or all-mighty. Animals have figured it out faster than we ever will. They know the fragility of life itself, they live a day to survive the next and to confirm the life after.
The beings that emerge in my work are of nature but also a symbol of forced change, or evolution if you will. What has to move despite aesthetics, love or attachment. What has to change despite comfort or beliefs of those who came before us. We unfurl for the same reason we begin to coil, the seed, the fetus and the water marrying the ink.
We are the consequences as we are the answers.
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