Pretending To Be Alive
One of the indicators of being alive is our response to stimuli — but how adequate is it, really? Most of the time, we drift away from truth itself and get pulled into the reality we've constructed.
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz defines humans as "animals suspended in webs of meaning they themselves have spun."
We are distant from experience, estranged from outcomes, fearful of making mistakes. The fixed is idealized. Don’t touch, don’t break, don’t move it, say this, don’t say that — that’s wrong, this is right! In lives we’ve surrendered to such directives, we've become alienated from the earth, water, and air. And the more alienated we become, the more we forget the requirements and the gifts of being human.
How did it begin, and how will it end?
Is it possible to fall back onto the surface of the earth?
Within the illusion that we are at the center of life, we are neither aware of the damage we inflict nor of the harm we endure.
We are imitating life, we pretend to be alive…
In this exhibition "Pretending To Be Alive" I trace the signs of this pretense. By painting the emotions, moments, and objects I’ve drawn from my own life and exploring their relationship with truth, I try to re-experience them — to realign with them.
In some of my works, I speak from within the reality I’ve created; in others, I force myself to confront the truth itself. At times, I willingly fall into the inertia that comes with shame and fear; at others, I call for accountability, for taking the reins. I focus on the experience itself, with unanswered questions in hand.
