Pathways
What are the consequences of a prolonged stay in place?
In order to understand what it means to be stuck, I am questioning how paths are created.
There are several philosophical and practical questions that occurred while creating Pathways, but they should primarily serve as emotional maps to inspire the viewer to face the demons of their location, whether physical, political, or personal. Paths are recurring visual motifs, and they are showcased as labyrinths, thresholds and routes.
I am inspired by the aesthetics of oppression from my childhood – it is the aesthetics of confinement and immobility – communist monuments and naive art that depicts the harsh lives of people in small rural communities in Slavonia. Our environment can be corrosive and serve as a catalyst for the difficult states of being which are addressed in this work.
Pathways consists of three artworks, each representing a state of being – entanglement, displacement, and metamorphosis.
Flow is an intimate examination of entanglement. Unlike a traditional fountain, this entity lacks utility for itself and its surroundings. As a sluggish organism dying of overflow, Flow combines elements of eel heads, insect shells, pig intestines, and the form of a lute into abstract horror.
Flight focuses on displacement, a significant subject in my work. The arch structure is made of sugar to highlight its impermanence. This make-believe threshold is a contemplation on the possibility of an exit.
Path is a meditation on metamorphosis, a meta structure which represents both a place, and a personification of the feeling of change. It is shedding and peeling in thin mechanical layers to reveal its iterative nature.