I recently read an interview with Lasse Antonsen on Making the Art Seen which coincided with Antonsen’s exhibit, The Continuous Translation, at the Artists’ Foundation Gallery. I was intrigued by Antonsen’s discussion of his work, particularly his ideas about “bringing two or more objects or realities together” in one piece. He says that combining objects, possibly dissimilar or unrelated objects and possibly altered in some way, “represents a rupture, but also a fulfillment: an expression of languages that were already embedded in their structures. These languages are not only visual, but also dramatic and poetic. Indeed, it is to the extent that these new objects can establish their disruptive element – which we, for lack of better words label poetic or dramatic – that they succeed in re-awakening, or accessing, new levels of memory and awareness.”
I love the words rupture and fulfillment. To me, words and images are most alive (fulfilling) when they are separated (the rupture) from their usual meanings and re-contextualized through artistic transformation or creative juxtapositions.
Antonsen referred to the white-painted flowers in his piece as funerary objects. When I was once attempting to translate grief into a painting, I put a mostly white, paper mache flower in the belly of a torso. When I see the flower in my painting and the flowers in Antonsen’s work, I see: the fragility of old, wrinkled skin, thin, bleached bones, the passing of time, and the visceral absence that inhabits our bodies in grief, the absence like a constant shiver passing through the body, or a quiet hum.
This is my translation, my re-awakening and it is this kind of continuous cross-pollination and artistic dialogue that I love so much.
I love the words rupture and fulfillment. To me, words and images are most alive (fulfilling) when they are separated (the rupture) from their usual meanings and re-contextualized through artistic transformation or creative juxtapositions.
Antonsen referred to the white-painted flowers in his piece as funerary objects. When I was once attempting to translate grief into a painting, I put a mostly white, paper mache flower in the belly of a torso. When I see the flower in my painting and the flowers in Antonsen’s work, I see: the fragility of old, wrinkled skin, thin, bleached bones, the passing of time, and the visceral absence that inhabits our bodies in grief, the absence like a constant shiver passing through the body, or a quiet hum.
This is my translation, my re-awakening and it is this kind of continuous cross-pollination and artistic dialogue that I love so much.