McLean Project for the Arts, Nov. 17 – Dec. 23, 2016
Above The Horizon
I tried to give home a form but it turned into water and spilled through of my hands. I tried to drink it but my hands were dry.
Soften. Break the world [heart] open. Close.
Above the Horizon is a permutation and embodied understanding of light and abstraction. It is a meditation on memory and longing, safety and place, and at its center stands a critical examination of degrees of separation; of distance and proximity, vastness and precision, of the space between life and death, and reckoning with deep sadness and great unknown.
I came to this abandoned silo. I found it, much like the discovery of a shadow on a wall. Its distant presence was ominous and forbidden but it’s openings of darkest black, like mouths, called me without voice or lips or tongue. Arms outstretched, it embraced me. I was pulled inside and held in it’s mysterious and widening light.
Dwell. Belong [home]. An endless, formless shape.
I returned daily to witness the light emerge and diminish in, and around, and through its tower. It was cold and then it became warm. Life expanded and then fell dormant.
Space collapses and widens simultaneously.
The lines on a face, one day shallow, the next day deep.
The deepest presence is to touch death and gently release it.
Water pours in sheets, like papers stacked, higher and higher.
The water deepens.
The lungs fill.
The heart collapses.
Broken.
Too many pieces.
Covered over. No breath. No words.
Drawn on and written over again and again.
Silenced. Washed away. Forgotten. A dream.
Memory has no loyalty.
