ART Habens Anne Cecile Surga worked its way alone into my mind. The minimalist form of the final sculpture allows the viewer to understand the theme of the work, while delivering a sense of playfullness and adventure which corresponds to my view of Love.
Despite the fact of being faced with a couple falling, the viewer can still interpret the scuplture in his own terms: is she pushing him? Is she keeping him from falling? Is he leading her? Are they falling together? All interpretations and all personal projections upon the work can be correct. As a child I was pretty impressed by a small devotion sculpture of Archangel Saint Michael Defeating the Demon that my grand-mother had( and still has) on her nightstand. The sculpture is quite graphic and is probably the cause of many childhood nightmares. However I did not develop a feeling of repudiation toward the theme of Saint Michael and the Demon, which is an image quite present in Christian countries.
On the contrary, I have a feeling of attachment toward this familiar imagery. The idea behind is for the viewer to understand that we as human are only limited by the constraints we impose on ourselves, not that much by the ones set by others. In other words, we are our own limits: believing we are not enough and thus not pursuing our destiny makes us our own ennemy. Very often people will tend to blame on external causes the reasons for their failures, or their life frustration. I personally tried to fit in a role that did not suit me out of fear( of not being good enough, of the struggles ahead, etc) before embracing my artistic undertaking. I did not force myself to reappropriate the theme of Saint Michael and the Demon to express this specific idea, the imagery somewhat imposed itself. Speaking of metaphors, I like to interpret the founding myths of society on different levels: here the angel Lucifer rebelled against God and lost his place in Heaven after being defeated by Saint Michael. I understand that at one point the personification of evil was part of the“ good side,” but he was cast away because of his disobedience. As a metaphor I can understand that Evil is a part of Good, and vice versa. Which leads me to the internal battle everyone is fighting on a daily basis against their own selves: what we perceive as qualities in ourselves can be our major shortcomings, and what we consider as flaws can be our main assets. This is a never-ending battle where we cannot know which side has the upper hand.
There is this quote I recently came across by Walter M. Miller“ You don’ t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily” which I think can be a starting point for my answer. One of the questions that is part of my investigation on the notion of identity is whether or not our own formal expression( that is to say, the body we live in) influences the way we define ourself or our identity. I do not have the answer to this question, but it is often in the back of my mind when I am creating a new work. The tension between physicality( in the sense of corporeality) and the psyche and how this relationship shapes our own image is really something that has kept me enthralled for a long time.
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