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ALL THE POSSIBILITIES THAT EXSISTED
"all the possibilities that existed" encompasses a series of charcoal and pencil drawings, as well as a video work and a group of objects that strive to show how to turn observation into awareness. What does it mean to tilt sideways and find another axis – does that yield a new stability? How can you find movement in what is static? How can you change your perspective so that it comprises a new known and the known in what is new? Here are 19 attempts at tilting stability.
"everything you say is true" is a series of charcoal drawings located halfway between sculpture and painting. The drawings were produced by touching the surface of the canvas countless times: the charcoal was caressed into a ground of ashes until the work was covered by dense layers that produce a material depth. There is a long tradition of academic drawing that is layered with conceptual and aesthetical meanings. It opens up the opportunity to comment on the work in the context of contemporary art in the form of a conversation with history and the tradition of drawing. I am interested in different contradictions and the tension that arises between polar opposites. The sterile background is set against a material as dirty as charcoal. The drawings’ sharp edges confront the technical unpredictability of charcoal. The brittle nature of charcoal resembles the surface of a rock, which is full of light. A drawing is usually thought of as something of a modest size, but a larger format gives it the status of a more monumental art form. Yet, at the same time, owing to the technical specifics, it does not lose its fineness or level of detail.
The series of drawings, "let your words be mine", like everything else, came into being a long time before appearing in my consciousness as a clear or unclear idea. In my case, I almost always take a white surface as a beginning. I want to call it empty, since there is nothing there. I am fascinated by how an image can be constructed so that, in relation to the drawing, the sheet becomes a space or is given the opportunity to be called a colour. I pay particular attention to the places where the emptiness, or whiteness, enters uninvited, unexpected, thus marking a rupture. This sheds light on the nature of being, inviting reflection on what is and what is not, that which can be seen, and that which is seemingly covered up – although, in truth, it has not been uncovered. I would like my works to hide more than they reveal. I want to open up silence.
In a similar tenor, I think about the video "this is where she is" – about rushing forward while staying in the same place. Forward from the opposite perspective is backward, but what happens when two entities continue moving, each towards its own forward? Two enormous forces rushing in opposite directions, cancelling each other? Will my gaze follow one of them? Will I see both and experience movement as inertia that takes me nowhere? The mirror of water mirrors itself in the mirrored image.
The installation "‘all the possibilities that existed" is a sonic unit comprising metronomes and pencils, which help to rein in time through conscious action. If greater precision – greater structure – is needed, can it be solved by increasing the number of time-measuring devices? One rhythm overlaps with others and produces the noise of the sea. This object of academic learning becomes a musical instrument which demonstrates, in quintet, the simultaneity of everything and, rather than keeping the rhythm, suggests stopping. The pencils quiver, drawing signs in the air. Back and forth, each in a somewhat different rhythm. They streak the air in order to achieve nothing at all.
curator: Zane Onckule
28 / 3 / 2024 - 4 / 5 / 2024
photos © Marje Eelma