About the exhibition:
An exhibition about people and art itself. A polymorphic exhibition curated by Vanessa Giorgo, Anna Kolosova and Melissa Vipritskaya Topal showcasing artworks of different mediums and perspectives about how it really is to be a part of this community.
There is this idea(l) of the artist creating art for art’s sake, living la vie bohème, being envied for their freedom and having the liberty to express their individuality. But is this the case?
Being a practicing artist does not necessarily mean one’s life is effortless and without any obstacles. Taking the (often subconscious) decision to become an artist comes with costs. Countless external factors hinder many artists from reaching their full potential by limiting their existence. Living in a world where the humanities and, in particular, the arts, are not favoured by the wider socio-economic system as a fruitful financial ecosystem, indicates that the majority of people working in the creative industries will have to find alternative means of supporting themselves financially.
Through an open call, we invited artists who have experienced these types of dualities. Through this show, the participating artists, are exploring how various stimuli from this contradiction have fed into their work, through a variety of mediums. from painting, photography, and digital art, to moving image, textiles, and sound art. It will be a multi-sensory event, consisting of a group of twenty-five creatives who have investigated how their work has been affected by the additional efforts that they have had to make in order to make ends meet, as well as how they imagine their futures will unfold. Driven by an emotional and ethical impetus, the purpose of this project is to reflect on the truths of the people in the creative industries, showcasing the complex character of their realities through their art and to pave the way of repurposing the art world with more care and collectivity.
There is this idea(l) of the artist creating art for art’s sake, living la vie bohème, being envied for their freedom and having the liberty to express their individuality. But is this the case?
Being a practicing artist does not necessarily mean one’s life is effortless and without any obstacles. Taking the (often subconscious) decision to become an artist comes with costs. Countless external factors hinder many artists from reaching their full potential by limiting their existence. Living in a world where the humanities and, in particular, the arts, are not favoured by the wider socio-economic system as a fruitful financial ecosystem, indicates that the majority of people working in the creative industries will have to find alternative means of supporting themselves financially.
Through an open call, we invited artists who have experienced these types of dualities. Through this show, the participating artists, are exploring how various stimuli from this contradiction have fed into their work, through a variety of mediums. from painting, photography, and digital art, to moving image, textiles, and sound art. It will be a multi-sensory event, consisting of a group of twenty-five creatives who have investigated how their work has been affected by the additional efforts that they have had to make in order to make ends meet, as well as how they imagine their futures will unfold. Driven by an emotional and ethical impetus, the purpose of this project is to reflect on the truths of the people in the creative industries, showcasing the complex character of their realities through their art and to pave the way of repurposing the art world with more care and collectivity.
Selected Artists:
Megan Jentsch
My paintings work around themes of human emotions, dynamics & behaviours. The paintings I make, use abstract expressionism to bring light to universal emotions experienced by all human beings. My works are often a display of harmonized chaos, inviting the viewer to move into a space of speculation. Although there may not always be material similarities between different paintings, I aim to create a standard level of depth that captures complex human nature. The paintings have always been executed in an instinctive but thoughtful matter.
The submitted painting was created under strenuous circumstances. External factors such as lack of money, materials, studio space and time were challenged while painting this work. Having only a couple hours available in a borrowed studio space, I was able to dig into the subconscious mind and produce a piece of work that I am proud of. The materials were graciously donated as well.
The submitted painting was created under strenuous circumstances. External factors such as lack of money, materials, studio space and time were challenged while painting this work. Having only a couple hours available in a borrowed studio space, I was able to dig into the subconscious mind and produce a piece of work that I am proud of. The materials were graciously donated as well.
Sabrina Brouwers
Having grown up in over 6 countries Sabrina has been exposed to countless cultural views and physical environments. By extension, her work is a response to man-made landscapes and the complexity
of our natural surroundings. The way in which we absorb the natural versus the man-made has encouraged Sabrina to deepen her understanding of human visual perception, specifically the therapeutic effects of visual simplicity and how they are present in our urban landscape. Sabrina’s response to these themes results in colourless and non-objective compositions where she uses elementary architectural forms to explore the psychological effects
of simplicity.
Sabrina’s recent body of work consists of abstract paintings centralized around a mathematically plotted grid system in the base of each motif - representing the unnaturally ordered character of the urban lanscape. She use the fluid shape of the circle to challenge this order. The proportions and compositions of each piece are determined through a balance of intuition and strategy, by placing the circles inside the coordinate system. By challenging the rigid grid system through a complex layered process, a dialogue between emergence and disappearance is
triggered - it is the barely visible grid format and recurring circle variable at the base of each composition which act as grounding
elements to visual simplicity.
of our natural surroundings. The way in which we absorb the natural versus the man-made has encouraged Sabrina to deepen her understanding of human visual perception, specifically the therapeutic effects of visual simplicity and how they are present in our urban landscape. Sabrina’s response to these themes results in colourless and non-objective compositions where she uses elementary architectural forms to explore the psychological effects
of simplicity.
Sabrina’s recent body of work consists of abstract paintings centralized around a mathematically plotted grid system in the base of each motif - representing the unnaturally ordered character of the urban lanscape. She use the fluid shape of the circle to challenge this order. The proportions and compositions of each piece are determined through a balance of intuition and strategy, by placing the circles inside the coordinate system. By challenging the rigid grid system through a complex layered process, a dialogue between emergence and disappearance is
triggered - it is the barely visible grid format and recurring circle variable at the base of each composition which act as grounding
elements to visual simplicity.
Cameron Randall
The work is considering ideas such a value, capital, commodity, the role of the artist, existentialism, traditional presentations of sculptural ruins in art history, art as commodity, consumption.
The title ‘cultured meat’ is the term for meat which is grown in labs for consumption. Something which is not currently financially sustainable, it is seen as a long term solution for meat production without the expense of the animal.
Given the site the exhibition and its relationship to the financial hub of Canary Wharf which hovers over the area, it felt important to recognise the relationship between capital and consumer society in relation to the art work. The materials are those which would be found in retail stores - clothes rail, rail cover and clothes hanger.
The title ‘cultured meat’ is the term for meat which is grown in labs for consumption. Something which is not currently financially sustainable, it is seen as a long term solution for meat production without the expense of the animal.
Given the site the exhibition and its relationship to the financial hub of Canary Wharf which hovers over the area, it felt important to recognise the relationship between capital and consumer society in relation to the art work. The materials are those which would be found in retail stores - clothes rail, rail cover and clothes hanger.
Elodie Carrel
WHEN THE LIGHTNING STRUCK THE THUNDERBOLT AND THEN WE DRANK MILKSHAKE
Elodie is an interdisciplinary artist based in Paris and London.
She uses the Absurd as a medium to question the position of an emerging artist in today’s contemporary art scene. Camus’s sense of the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus resonates with the fact that one must reckon with the absurdity of searching for unity in a world devoid of coherence. Through the three different pieces of work, the Absurd is used as a language to exaggerate, thus to highlight the acceptance of a given situation. The Absurd being full of paradoxes is playing with the notion of the immateriality of Art, within the materialistic commercial value of Art. With the artist intellectually accepting to abide by a capitalist system to thrive while being aware that he doesn’t have much choice in it as he must thrive, sets himself into an absurd hero.
Turning away from any moralistic view of Art within a capitalist system, the usage of the Absurd language is in fact asking to steer conversations amidst viewers.
Let’s Eat Money, video installation
Blue chip artists in this work are presented as stock market investment. The predominant fact of prestigious clients investing in blue chip artists is here exaggerated in the aim to materialize the artist in itself. By fractionating the artist’s work as stock market, the installation also questions whether prestigious clients should only be the ones able to invest in blue chip artists. Additionally, the work highlights the place of an emerging artist amidst the present climate.
Volume
Volume highlights an ongoing trend of uniformity seen on art labels. The Absurd is here to manifest the paradox of describing a personal piece of work in an unipersonal fashion.
Let them drink your blood
The glass sculpture’s intention is to highlight the exclusive world of the art circle into a cube. The idea is one of a see-through mirror box, in which there is an ever ongoing party in which the viewer is not invited to.
Elodie is an interdisciplinary artist based in Paris and London.
She uses the Absurd as a medium to question the position of an emerging artist in today’s contemporary art scene. Camus’s sense of the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus resonates with the fact that one must reckon with the absurdity of searching for unity in a world devoid of coherence. Through the three different pieces of work, the Absurd is used as a language to exaggerate, thus to highlight the acceptance of a given situation. The Absurd being full of paradoxes is playing with the notion of the immateriality of Art, within the materialistic commercial value of Art. With the artist intellectually accepting to abide by a capitalist system to thrive while being aware that he doesn’t have much choice in it as he must thrive, sets himself into an absurd hero.
Turning away from any moralistic view of Art within a capitalist system, the usage of the Absurd language is in fact asking to steer conversations amidst viewers.
Let’s Eat Money, video installation
Blue chip artists in this work are presented as stock market investment. The predominant fact of prestigious clients investing in blue chip artists is here exaggerated in the aim to materialize the artist in itself. By fractionating the artist’s work as stock market, the installation also questions whether prestigious clients should only be the ones able to invest in blue chip artists. Additionally, the work highlights the place of an emerging artist amidst the present climate.
Volume
Volume highlights an ongoing trend of uniformity seen on art labels. The Absurd is here to manifest the paradox of describing a personal piece of work in an unipersonal fashion.
Let them drink your blood
The glass sculpture’s intention is to highlight the exclusive world of the art circle into a cube. The idea is one of a see-through mirror box, in which there is an ever ongoing party in which the viewer is not invited to.
Sujata Majumdar
This printing block was created using global bottom-up maker technology, and uses sound data from his (father’s) block-carving workshop to express the intricate hard work and skill that goes into the hand production of textile printing blocks.
The piece is about compromise between the arts and making a living as a traditional craftsperson. It is also about using technology and automation, the areas the artist works in to fund herself.
Jaimin Gajjar is a younger generation block maker from the traditional textile printing community, who can no longer earn a living from his family craft. Instead he works full time in Insurance and in his spare time learns the craft of block carving from his father. We created blocks together which blend varying degrees of automation and local, traditional hand work.
Block printing is actually an automation of ‘kalamkari’ - where textile is painted using an ink pen - so it makes sense to look for new hybrids. The block carvers are planning to set up a fablab locally to experiment further.
Collaborators: Textiel Factorij (NL), Ghanshyambhai & Jaimin Gajjar (IN), Wowlab (NL)
The piece is about compromise between the arts and making a living as a traditional craftsperson. It is also about using technology and automation, the areas the artist works in to fund herself.
Jaimin Gajjar is a younger generation block maker from the traditional textile printing community, who can no longer earn a living from his family craft. Instead he works full time in Insurance and in his spare time learns the craft of block carving from his father. We created blocks together which blend varying degrees of automation and local, traditional hand work.
Block printing is actually an automation of ‘kalamkari’ - where textile is painted using an ink pen - so it makes sense to look for new hybrids. The block carvers are planning to set up a fablab locally to experiment further.
Collaborators: Textiel Factorij (NL), Ghanshyambhai & Jaimin Gajjar (IN), Wowlab (NL)
Belen Lopez Santamarina
In the Migran-t series, I explore feelings of longing and nostalgia present in the act of migrating. I explore the symbolic aspect of hands as touch and care enablers.
By embroidering a bedsheet with combings of my hair, I find a way of traversing a bridge between the life I knew and the one I created here.
By embroidering a bedsheet with combings of my hair, I find a way of traversing a bridge between the life I knew and the one I created here.
Stuart Jones
‘Urban 4'
A painting inspired by the urban environment. It questions the way we live in and view our environment. Ideas around technology, the climate crisis and social and political issues are explored through this piece. Oil paint has been diluted and layered on the canvas surface and applied using brushstrokes that manipulate the surface of the canvas creating an illusion, like the subject matter is in flux, moving or melting.'
A painting inspired by the urban environment. It questions the way we live in and view our environment. Ideas around technology, the climate crisis and social and political issues are explored through this piece. Oil paint has been diluted and layered on the canvas surface and applied using brushstrokes that manipulate the surface of the canvas creating an illusion, like the subject matter is in flux, moving or melting.'
Silas Grocott Cain
My art is most often self-portraiture, whether it be photography, painting, film, etc. so I ask how do I create images of myself whilst experiencing constant gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia amongst other mental health problems? am I trying to seek the beauty in myself or am I seeking validation?
Eirini Tampasouli
I’m hungry’ was made using video projections on my empty fridge. It depicts two different realities I was living concerning the term of hunger. The one is about physical hunger, as at the beginning of the quarantine I was trying to cut down my expenses to minimum, food included. And the second is about a different form of hunger, a hunger for the irrational, the lack of purpose, the personal expression that is considered not capable to adapt to the norms.
Seray Ozdemir
Famous last words of a young millennial here:
Famous last words of a young millennial is a poem, an unrealistic manifesto, a mantra of personal deception, a flat-out lie. It’s a portrayal of the artist’s desire to rebel against the neoliberal achievement society—the culture of being defined by accomplishments, and tying self-worth to self-advancement and career. However, the artist can’t help but wonder if refusing to comply with the universal productivity, success, wellness and relaxation tips could actually be a self-destructive act. So, here, we see the artist contradicting herself by engaging in creative writing and colouring as acts of both labour and reparation. By offering the audience copies for them to colour, the artist seems to invite all her fellow millennials to the arms of compliance.
Famous last words of a young millennial is a poem, an unrealistic manifesto, a mantra of personal deception, a flat-out lie. It’s a portrayal of the artist’s desire to rebel against the neoliberal achievement society—the culture of being defined by accomplishments, and tying self-worth to self-advancement and career. However, the artist can’t help but wonder if refusing to comply with the universal productivity, success, wellness and relaxation tips could actually be a self-destructive act. So, here, we see the artist contradicting herself by engaging in creative writing and colouring as acts of both labour and reparation. By offering the audience copies for them to colour, the artist seems to invite all her fellow millennials to the arms of compliance.
Sophie Stewart
Sophie Stewart’s work explores the dualities of working in hospitality and the creative sector, in terms of finding the balance between freedom in work and the obligation to work. In addition to this, she explores the idea of producing work just to seem productive and the effects this can have on the individual in terms of emotional labour and feeding into our own precarious ways of living.
Charlie Hawksfield
“Flags” is an installation of three paintings: “Unreliable Harpoonist” :The Blip” and “Catstrophic Projections.” They are displayed as free-standing standards. These works on unstretched canvas subvert the notion that flags represent or symbolise a group, tribe or nation. By mixing painting, printmaking and sculptural techniques, the “Flags” triptych aims to use the same format of declaration to celebrate abstract systems of doubt, change and entropy.
Three unstreched canvases 60×80cm, oil and acrylic with custom wooden structure. 2021
Three unstreched canvases 60×80cm, oil and acrylic with custom wooden structure. 2021
Jeremy Wolf
Three of the paintings in this show (apparition, bsod, and the shopping trip) were made during the height of lockdown in 2020. As a result they largely reflect the unease and uncertainty of that time for me, along with snippets of imagery from memories and other visual influences from my past. apparition and bsod in particular take advantage of the clash between darker subject matter and color palettes that might be more commonly found in images that were more upbeat. I find that dissonance adds to the tension in the image and helps double down on the unease one feels looking at the image.
In walking monster (east london), I’m trying to capture a moment in my life and memorialize it in a painting. The image is really reflective of an everyday event and gives specific indications of place and time in its style and the imagery included in the image. The style is reflective of a series of work I began upon moving to London in March of 2019. My socks, slides, and the emptied bottle of Cherry B on the sidewalk all further narrow the possible time during which this image might have been painted. The location in the title of the piece narrows those possibilities even further.
In walking monster (east london), I’m trying to capture a moment in my life and memorialize it in a painting. The image is really reflective of an everyday event and gives specific indications of place and time in its style and the imagery included in the image. The style is reflective of a series of work I began upon moving to London in March of 2019. My socks, slides, and the emptied bottle of Cherry B on the sidewalk all further narrow the possible time during which this image might have been painted. The location in the title of the piece narrows those possibilities even further.
Rebecca Byrne
Rebecca Byrne is an American painter living and working in London; she works on canvas and aluminum, as well as 9m long paper which she uses to create immersive site-responsive installations that can be rolled up and reinterpreted in another location. Her interest is in the psychological impact of spaces, both man-made and natural, and she presents strange landscapes that reflect an interior world rooted in fragments of memory, reality and fantasy.
The work for A Voyage of Absurdity comes from a body of work Byrne has been making during lockdown that reflects invented conversations she is having with female artists that she admires, such as Helen Frankenthaler, Dora Marr and Georgia O’Keeffe. She has been reading about their lives and the challenges they faced to be recognized for their work, and she found the studio filling up with their presence. Unlike Philip Guston (quoting John Cage) who said that, as he painted, everyone left the room, Byrne welcomes artists in for a chat to reduce her isolation with imaginary conversations. This ritual starts her studio days and the musings that came from these ‘conversations’ are filling up journals in the studio as a record of this time.
The work for A Voyage of Absurdity comes from a body of work Byrne has been making during lockdown that reflects invented conversations she is having with female artists that she admires, such as Helen Frankenthaler, Dora Marr and Georgia O’Keeffe. She has been reading about their lives and the challenges they faced to be recognized for their work, and she found the studio filling up with their presence. Unlike Philip Guston (quoting John Cage) who said that, as he painted, everyone left the room, Byrne welcomes artists in for a chat to reduce her isolation with imaginary conversations. This ritual starts her studio days and the musings that came from these ‘conversations’ are filling up journals in the studio as a record of this time.
Emily Mary Barnett
Abundance’ is a collection of paintings made over the pandemic gathered to form a new narrative. Each work was created as an individual piece, exploring the myriad emotions felt during a time of upheaval and limitation. Together they form a diary which holds a great emotional weight, each work a release in contrast to the rigid, repetitive and restrictive nature of the daily work necessary to sustain the practise. The arrangement of the paintings as a ‘pile’, highlights the cathartic nature of the work, which started to pile high in my tiny studio; a welcome escape from my home which had also become a busy office.
Melissa Vipritskaya Topal
“Silent Observers”
‘Silent Observers’ exposes a minority of people who are afraid of expressing their views as opposed to the mass who is on the frontline and demanding change, sometimes sacrificing entire elements of their life. In my artwork, these observers have a binary view of their surroundings without any shades and complexity. In this confined environment, there is no communication but only silent and extreme individualism. In many places, these fearful weaklings contribute to the society’s inertia and preventing any kind of development.
‘Silent Observers’ exposes a minority of people who are afraid of expressing their views as opposed to the mass who is on the frontline and demanding change, sometimes sacrificing entire elements of their life. In my artwork, these observers have a binary view of their surroundings without any shades and complexity. In this confined environment, there is no communication but only silent and extreme individualism. In many places, these fearful weaklings contribute to the society’s inertia and preventing any kind of development.
Lino
My work is about reality. However, not about “reality” as something unique and unbreakable, but rather as something ethereal, subjective, that continually mutates with each passing second and that depends on the point of view of each one of us. It is my way of understanding that reality is not just ONE; it is part of a great system of infinite interconnected realities, which are related like a great rhizome, without a beginning or an end, where no reality is more valid than the other, but go hand in hand, building our world second after second.
It is a call to mutual respect, to understanding that our point of view can be completely different from that of the person right next to us and still be just as valid and real. The moment we manage to understand what it really means that every person experiences and lives their own reality and we make it part of our way of relating to the world. That day the human being will take a step forward and we will be able to say that we have evolved... a little bit more.
It is a call to mutual respect, to understanding that our point of view can be completely different from that of the person right next to us and still be just as valid and real. The moment we manage to understand what it really means that every person experiences and lives their own reality and we make it part of our way of relating to the world. That day the human being will take a step forward and we will be able to say that we have evolved... a little bit more.
S.H.A (Sound Hybrid Artist) & Roberta Volpe
SOUND ON ART is a collaborative art project.
The aim is to create a dual piece of art, one painting and one soundtrack (carved onto a vinyl record). The soundtrack is called “My Sound Vision Of...” and it is based on S.H.A.’s feelings on Roberta’s paintings.
The soundtrack is more like a cinematic soundtrack than a piece of traditional music. It’s an immersive (3D) sound universe where the audience can get lost while looking at the painting.
“ONE” has been made especially for “A Voyage of Absurdity”, but for this one the painting is inspired by the soundtrack.
Roberta Volpe is an award-winning Set Designer and painter. Born in Milan she trained in Set Design at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and in Set and Costume Design at the Opera Academy of Verona.
She did her apprenticeship at Teatro La Scala in Milan where she masters her skills as a sculptor and painter. Her painting style expresses itself through textured explosions of colors and silhouettes that emerge from a blurred background that are expressed in energetic brushstrokes.
S.H.A. - Sound Hybrid Artist is a Hybrid Audio Sorcerer. He is an audio producer, a sound designer, a sound engineer, a composer, a film director and a sound artist. Born in Chevreuse near Paris, drummer and self-taught in music, he studied computer science before completing a Master’s degree in sound for motion pictures. His work is a crossroads between technical skills and artistic vision where he explores the diversity of sound emotions through a wide range of fields that require the use of sound. It has made him a “Sound Hybrid Artist”.
The aim is to create a dual piece of art, one painting and one soundtrack (carved onto a vinyl record). The soundtrack is called “My Sound Vision Of...” and it is based on S.H.A.’s feelings on Roberta’s paintings.
The soundtrack is more like a cinematic soundtrack than a piece of traditional music. It’s an immersive (3D) sound universe where the audience can get lost while looking at the painting.
“ONE” has been made especially for “A Voyage of Absurdity”, but for this one the painting is inspired by the soundtrack.
Roberta Volpe is an award-winning Set Designer and painter. Born in Milan she trained in Set Design at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and in Set and Costume Design at the Opera Academy of Verona.
She did her apprenticeship at Teatro La Scala in Milan where she masters her skills as a sculptor and painter. Her painting style expresses itself through textured explosions of colors and silhouettes that emerge from a blurred background that are expressed in energetic brushstrokes.
S.H.A. - Sound Hybrid Artist is a Hybrid Audio Sorcerer. He is an audio producer, a sound designer, a sound engineer, a composer, a film director and a sound artist. Born in Chevreuse near Paris, drummer and self-taught in music, he studied computer science before completing a Master’s degree in sound for motion pictures. His work is a crossroads between technical skills and artistic vision where he explores the diversity of sound emotions through a wide range of fields that require the use of sound. It has made him a “Sound Hybrid Artist”.
Mia Sinclair
My project, entitled ‘Golden Measures’ will explore the relationship between money and time, the concept being that the latter is the ‘Artists’ greatest resource. Often, those who have the freedom to create, are those from a similar social-economic background, one that is conducive to their practice. But this is a privilege and too many are in a position where they have no choice but to decentre their practice and prioritise work in order to keep them afloat. It’s the time-old problem, one that is both practical and existential, because we have no choice in who we are and the conditions we are born into and now we cannot even choose to be an artist.
With thanks to: Santiago Bello, Alex Alying, Marco Namor, Chad-Lee Brown and Elena Garcia.
With thanks to: Santiago Bello, Alex Alying, Marco Namor, Chad-Lee Brown and Elena Garcia.
Zula Rabikowska
Becoming Herstory explores the idea of home, belonging, and migration. I moved to the UK 20 years ago as a child and this move created a physical and cultural rupture with my family and Polish society. Using self-portraiture, I wear my ancestors’ clothes, connect with my family heritage, and highlight the war-torn complexity of Eastern Europe.
Eman Khokhar
My project is relevant to this exhibition because of the deep connection between a mother and daughter. I myself focus on the dual personalities the two of us embody. The reality here is that once my education is completed I am to get married, though when you have such passion as an artist/photographer your mind only wishes to create. I struggle to come to realization that “starting a life” is the way forward or the next step. However, the twist lies within all of this is that no matter how much I battle with the expectations that are set for me vs. the expectations I have for myself, I will always want my mother’s acceptance. It’s the ambivalence that lies between my work, they grey space and the constant contradictions that has brought me here today. Sometimes our external factors are the ones right beside us.
As well as from the cultural society I come from, there is very little appetite for women to show case their work, especially for photographers, painting is just about accepted. I talk through my photographs, however that is not common or seen as much, both in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
As well as from the cultural society I come from, there is very little appetite for women to show case their work, especially for photographers, painting is just about accepted. I talk through my photographs, however that is not common or seen as much, both in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Anna Kolosova
Anna Kolosova is an artist living and working in London. Her practice is painting in an ‘expanded field’, experimenting with materials, dimensions and life itself.
This particular project is titled ‘Live Combine’ which originally started in 2013 as a means of exploring the boundaries of painting. It also ended up being a comment on feminism, speaking of objectification. Anna would be chained to her own paintings as a found ready-made object feeling as her alter-alter-alter-ego (ready-made, artist, artwork).
This time round in 2021, Anna has decided to showcase this project once again as a symbolic act to mark a historical point in time when we are slowly coming out of lockdown, not only to do with the global pandemic but also releasing ourselves from the self-imposed bondage in our minds. Internationally we all had to do a lot of soul-searching in these past months. Many of us have come to realise how bound we tend to be to the poorly-functioning rusty systems that are in place that we are not sure we know how to escape. By physically chaining herself to her artwork, the building and the wider structures Anna is demonstrating her awareness of the attachments she and other artists have to certain sets of values imposed upon us by the society and the ‘matrix’ we live in. Both creativity and spirituality should be added to these—think “SpiritualCoin”, “AestheticsCoin”. We should be able to create our own realities. For that we need time, shelter, good food, clean water and the higher vibrations of the mind. The way our socio-economical structures are in place do not allow room for accessing those elements. Once Anna releases herself from the artwork, she will enact these notions and set herself free; because she chooses to. She invites you to do the same.
This particular project is titled ‘Live Combine’ which originally started in 2013 as a means of exploring the boundaries of painting. It also ended up being a comment on feminism, speaking of objectification. Anna would be chained to her own paintings as a found ready-made object feeling as her alter-alter-alter-ego (ready-made, artist, artwork).
This time round in 2021, Anna has decided to showcase this project once again as a symbolic act to mark a historical point in time when we are slowly coming out of lockdown, not only to do with the global pandemic but also releasing ourselves from the self-imposed bondage in our minds. Internationally we all had to do a lot of soul-searching in these past months. Many of us have come to realise how bound we tend to be to the poorly-functioning rusty systems that are in place that we are not sure we know how to escape. By physically chaining herself to her artwork, the building and the wider structures Anna is demonstrating her awareness of the attachments she and other artists have to certain sets of values imposed upon us by the society and the ‘matrix’ we live in. Both creativity and spirituality should be added to these—think “SpiritualCoin”, “AestheticsCoin”. We should be able to create our own realities. For that we need time, shelter, good food, clean water and the higher vibrations of the mind. The way our socio-economical structures are in place do not allow room for accessing those elements. Once Anna releases herself from the artwork, she will enact these notions and set herself free; because she chooses to. She invites you to do the same.