Blue ValentinesAn exhibition of water drawings
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"Endlessly I sustain the discourse of the beloved's absence; actually a preposterous situation; the other is absent as referent, present as allocutory. This singular distortion generates a kind of insupportable present; I am wedged between two tenses, that of the reference and that of the allocution: you have gone (which I lament), you are here (since I am addressing you). Whereupon I know what the present, that difficult tense, is: a pure portion of anxiety." Roland Barthes - A Lover's Discourse
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The paradoxical nature of desire is the underlying theme of 'Blue Valentines'. The absence of the beloved is essential for the artist to immerse herself in the act of making art. Yet, during these meditative, solitary sessions images of desire invoking the absent beloved invariably appear. Painting water onto paper, waiting for the process of evaporation to suggest shapes which the artist explores and allows to evaporate again, always watching for that transitory moment of resonance between water stains and mental imprint - the process of water drawing is reminiscent of a sustained series of Rorschach tests, to which the artist can only say in her defense: "I rarely think about art when making love." Exploring the nature of desire, physicality and the mapping of intellectual erogenous zones leads into strange territories. Word associations and tactile memories morph into a visual code, filling the surface with images reminiscent of body parts, birds and cats, dogs and horses - the flow of thought and water suspended, arrested as if in a momentary x-ray revealing the nature of wanting. This exhibition is a selection from many photographed water drawings created over several years. The name of the show refers to a song by Tom Waits from the album 'Asylum Years'. Many of the drawings were created while listening to these guttural, soulful songs. |
