On May 4th, reflecting on artworks elaborated since March I wrote: “not to hide, nor to escape, nor to run away but to conserve and nourish” as an overall impression and intention behind the pieces made. They are indeed almost set up in a separate reality with very precise boundaries and aligned fences built of pickets and barbed wires or directly halting human figures holding hands.
Spring arrived and I am different, mourning past me from January and February yet understanding it is no longer relevant and it is time to move on. This feeling – the effort to resist change – must be remaining from birth and the yarning to not leave the familiar womb as an unresolved trauma causing the same reaction over and over again throughout life.
Today, in June, I remember I was unnerved, distracted but also very rich in the drawing process with many potential and interesting pieces coming daily. During what felt like an initial period I drew a lot of figures, sleeping or resting (perhaps because I myself was half asleep) and then, getting tired of drawing although it began as an obsession, my joy was to cut all of them out sitting for hours on the floor, fully attached to every shape created and without even thinking about collaging. Overall, in both drawing and cutting I wanted to experience the process and my current interest fully until overwhelmed in order to be concrete and more precise in the representation of the momentary atmosphere and my reaction to it.
Those weeks of most convenient weather when it is neither hot nor cold came in March switching to April and let me deepen the animal related themes I began developing in winter. Soon if not immediately the main subject of my drawings became the beings met during outside studio hours. Such moments prolonged and turned more frequent with increased variety in type of interaction: mid April it was common to draw the horses from a herd located by the riverside on different papers experimenting with depicting their fur. Spring is the time for life to awaken and indeed I was never alone while in nature but surrounded by day by day increasing in number and kind insects and birds, accompanying more the animals I wanted to draw rather than me. It continues to bring me satisfaction that this new old presence coincided with myself drawing tiny fragile figures later inserted in all the artworks created.
“The artworks created” as a process was unexpectedly gradual and mostly clear coming as a realisation after a period of fog and confusion. While basing on the real events happening (prevalently in “The Hill” and “The Mourning doll”) each of the 5 pieces made are about an imaginary space existing within to conserve and take care of what is vulnerable; excluding the outside considered harmful and creating boundaries with pickets, barbed wires and halting humans coming from the desire to escape and disconnect but also to console and reassure through the image of a black faced mutt coming at night to take away who is in distress and a house in the woods where no one uninvited can enter. The images are strongly reflecting on changes and the reactions triggered by the erratic situations, sometimes confronted in sorrow, grieving what was (The Mourning doll, The Hill) or accepting and living with the change (Pregnant Mare) if not looking forward for it to happen (Hooktail, Three sisters and a palomino horse).
With these 5 artworks, reflections and impressions I am concluding the period leaving the door open for what is next because it is already June and I am greeting summer inside the studio “not to hide, nor to escape, nor to run away but to conserve and nourish”.