I live in a vortex.
Life continues to swirl in perfect rhythm around me as I attempt to make myself comfortable in the eye of the storm. There’s one chair here and it’s terribly cramped. Not so much a design flaw of the chair as it is the nagging that I don’t belong in it. It’s not meant for me to get too cozy as I’ll inevitably be moving on. The longer I sit, the more dismal my display of restlessness becomes. The more I ponder on my existence in the chair, the deeper I sink and the closer the swirl closes in. I look around, spine parallel to the stiff chair back. The ear-ringing stillness consumes me as my eyes lock onto a door to my left. I hadn’t noticed it there before.
In this Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibition, “De-pondering”, themes of spirituality and self-identity are evident through the exploration of element and principle-based self-portraiture. Growing up in a religious culture, the act of “pondering” on spiritual subjects was common and encouraged. Any amount of religious pondering I’ve encountered has been followed by an anxious fatigue and the lack of clarity has left me spiritually aimless. These were the beginnings of forcing myself to be comfortable in an increasingly uncomfortable mind vortex. The more I ponder, the deeper into the vortex I sink.
The figures in these pieces are placed in both objective and non-objective spaces that convey this aimless vortex. There’s a tangible exploration of materials and mediums that run parallel to my own fluid spirituality. Through intentional use of space and composition the viewer is encouraged to drift with each figure depicted.
Go ahead, de-ponder here for a bit.
We could be okay here, living in a vortex forever. Spiraling together in a perpetual void of spiritual and emotional liminality.
