September 01, 2005 - September 30, 2005
Gordart Gallery, Johannesburg
Fluidity
Fluidity was my contribution to the group exhibition Forcefield held with Sheila Flynn, Cheryl Gage, and Monique Rudman van Rooyen
Artist's Statement
This print suite explores the changing cycles of nature, the flow and ebb of human relationships, and my awareness that intimacy is a shifting rather than a fixed state.
At first glance, each image depicts a rose. In popular culture, this often symbolises romance, yet in reality, within a rose, there is an underlying tension due to the coexistence of velvet petals and piercing thorns. Before making the fluidity prints, I had planted and tended for a small rose garden, photographing and sketching the various stages in the roses’ life cycles of growth and dying down. For me, the most significant seven stages were budding, the opening bloom then full bloom, the overblown rose followed by decay on the stem, the pruning process, and then composting or feeding for new growth.
The imagery of the relationship metaphor was reinforced by including fragments of text from seven readings of the ancient Chinese humanist philosophy of I Ching or Classic of Change. The I Ching is a divination process that developed to provide insight around shifts in one's life, whether large or small. Each reading is obtained by throwing six coins six times while considering one's question. The way the coins fall leads to one of 64 possible readings, and the reading must be interpreted with one's question in mind. I selected the readings to parallel each specific relationship stage, and included a rubbing of the coin combination necessary to reach that reading. These readings created the titles for the works: FU: Awakening; T'AI: Pervading; FENG: Fullness; SUN: Sacrifice; K'UN: Decay; PO: Stripping; and HSU: Patience.
The seven artworks were intended to be installed as a circular installation with no specific beginning or end, so that the narrative may be entered into and engaged with at any point, a metaphor for the non-linear path that most relationships follow.
Acknowledgements
The
following sources were used to research my topic and provide quotes in the
artworks:
Beuster, J. 1991. The Jungian Construct Synchronicity, with special reference to The I Ching. Pretoria.
Blok, F. 2000. The I Ching: Landscapes of the Soul. Amsterdam: Blozo Products.
Karcher, S. 2002. Symbols of Love. London: Little, Brown and Company.
