“January 20, 2023 – 30 years have passed since the death of one of UNICEF’s most extraordinary and generous Goodwill Ambassadors, Audrey Hepburn. Audrey was a tireless advocate for the rights of children and girls and is still a model of strength and passion for all of us. Shortly after becoming a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1988, Audrey was on assignment in Ethiopia, where years of drought and civil strife had caused a terrible famine. In the following years, she carried out a series of field missions with UNICEF, visiting a polio vaccine project in Turkey, training programs for women in Venezuela, initiatives for children living and working on the streets in Ecuador, for the supply of drinking water in Guatemala and Honduras and radio literacy programs in El Salvador. She visited schools in Bangladesh, interventions for the poorest children in Thailand, nutrition initiatives in Vietnam and camps for displaced children in Sudan. Audrey Hepburn said: ‘I can testify to what UNICEF means to children, because I was among those who received food and medical aid in the immediate aftermath of World War II (..) Like hundreds of thousands of other Dutch children, I survived in the last war with very poor health, due to years of malnutrition, and UNICEF intervened immediately after the liberation, as it does now in all kinds of emergencies, with food, clothing, medicine and blankets’. Audrey Hepburn’s incredible commitment to helping the most vulnerable did not stop even in the last period of her life, during her illness, when the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador continued to meet the gazes of the most vulnerable children in various other field missions in Somalia, Kenya, United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and United States. ‘UNICEF has a long and wonderful arm with which it reaches out to where the need is greatest. I personally can do very little, but I can contribute to a whole chain of events, which is UNICEF, and that’s a wonderful feeling. It’s like a prize to me, towards the end of my life,’ Audrey Hepburn recalled.” — Words by @seanhepburnferrer . Rest in power, grandma, eternal source of inspiration to me, and to the rest of the world.
“January 20, 2023 – 30 years have passed since the death of one of UNICEF’s most extraordinary and generous Goodwill Ambassadors, Audrey Hepburn. Audrey was a tireless advocate for the rights of children and girls and is still a model of strength and passion for all of us. Shortly after becoming a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1988, Audrey was on assignment in Ethiopia, where years of drought and civil strife had caused a terrible famine. In the following years, she carried out a series of field missions with UNICEF, visiting a polio vaccine project in Turkey, training programs for women in Venezuela, initiatives for children living and working on the streets in Ecuador, for the supply of drinking water in Guatemala and Honduras and radio literacy programs in El Salvador. She visited schools in Bangladesh, interventions for the poorest children in Thailand, nutrition initiatives in Vietnam and camps for displaced children in Sudan. Audrey Hepburn said: ‘I can testify to what UNICEF means to children, because I was among those who received food and medical aid in the immediate aftermath of World War II (..) Like hundreds of thousands of other Dutch children, I survived in the last war with very poor health, due to years of malnutrition, and UNICEF intervened immediately after the liberation, as it does now in all kinds of emergencies, with food, clothing, medicine and blankets’. Audrey Hepburn’s incredible commitment to helping the most vulnerable did not stop even in the last period of her life, during her illness, when the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador continued to meet the gazes of the most vulnerable children in various other field missions in Somalia, Kenya, United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and United States. ‘UNICEF has a long and wonderful arm with which it reaches out to where the need is greatest. I personally can do very little, but I can contribute to a whole chain of events, which is UNICEF, and that’s a wonderful feeling. It’s like a prize to me, towards the end of my life,’ Audrey Hepburn recalled.” — Words by @seanhepburnferrer . Rest in power, grandma, eternal source of inspiration to me, and to the rest of the world.
Today in @voguephilippines ❤️❤️❤️ as I’m en route to Manila 🛫 @intimateaudrey opens August 1st at the Museum at S Maison in Manila @seanhepburnferrer 🥳❤️
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This is nerve-wracking! Beginning to share my new works with the world feels intimate, and to be honest, scary. I think that’s because they are truer, more ‘me’ than my prior works. Living in Italy, I am immersed in this pool of tradition, ritual, conventional and non-conventional spaces and forms of spirituality. I know this last word holds a lot of meaning for some, for others, non-meaning, problems for even more. Am I spiritual? Am I religious? Am I part of the problem if I even try to look at these ideas? How do I begin to even look towards these sacred spaces and practices that have existed for centuries, millennia even? What is a place of “culto”? Wouldn’t my time be better spent, more useful focusing on other things? But, would looking away be, in a way, being unintentionally more wrapped up in this belief system? As much as they are in reverence of this world, these people, these practices, and even these secrets, this new work attempts to be a critique of these environments, a commentary of our lives as they are informed by belief. I could go on and on, but, for now here is “La Processione della Madonna Addolorata di Putignano”, or “The Procession of Our Lady of Sorrows of Putignano”. Taking this to the framer today for the MA Interim show with @fine_art_csm, ‘All things current are found’ Open 11am–5pm, 10–12 March at The Chainstore, 64 Orchard Place. Trinity Buoy Wharf. E14 0JW London #mainterimshowcsm
Time to post a new painting. I have been painting “like I’m possessed”, as one of my classmates says of her own work, but not posting anything. This is the logical continuation of my work around religion. This particular painting is a piece about a hospital chapel- a space that I find infinitely fascinating, confusing, curious, spiritual, profound, and absurd. It is, of course, a space where religion and science meet. But it is also a place where one can witness and feel desperation. Peer in on someone else’s relationship with god, and where one might try and initiate a relationship with god- for the first time, last time, in hope, scorn, faith, or in irrefutable enlightenment. It is also a place where one might come to god for the first time, as a first resort, or for the first time in a new way, as a last resort. These spaces are intimate yet shared. I like in this painting the sensation of “peering in” on the person within. Not knowing if one can, or should enter, as one of my tutors says. The sign on the wall at the back reads “Signore, se vuoi, tu puoi, sanarmi.” This translates to a verse from Matthew 8:2 that reads “Suddenly a leper came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” I find it interesting that the verse reads “sanarmi” – or “make me clean”, not “heal me” or “make me better”. This notion of purification, of actually rendering clean that which is impure, dirty even, as in the case of the leper, is becoming central to my work. What is clean? What is to become whole? Can purity exist with impurity? Is something more pure if it is impure? These are just some more questions driving my work. I could go on and on, as there is so much locked into this painting for me. But for now, this painting is “Cappella Ospedaliera della Cittadella della Salute di Campo di Marte”, or “Hospital Chapel of the Health Citadel of Campo di Marte”. #painting #oilonjute #oilpainting
Time to post a new painting. I have been painting “like I’m possessed”, as one of my classmates says of her own work, but not posting anything. This is the logical continuation of my work around religion. This particular painting is a piece about a hospital chapel- a space that I find infinitely fascinating, confusing, curious, spiritual, profound, and absurd. It is, of course, a space where religion and science meet. But it is also a place where one can witness and feel desperation. Peer in on someone else’s relationship with god, and where one might try and initiate a relationship with god- for the first time, last time, in hope, scorn, faith, or in irrefutable enlightenment. It is also a place where one might come to god for the first time, as a first resort, or for the first time in a new way, as a last resort. These spaces are intimate yet shared. I like in this painting the sensation of “peering in” on the person within. Not knowing if one can, or should enter, as one of my tutors says. The sign on the wall at the back reads “Signore, se vuoi, tu puoi, sanarmi.” This translates to a verse from Matthew 8:2 that reads “Suddenly a leper came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” I find it interesting that the verse reads “sanarmi” – or “make me clean”, not “heal me” or “make me better”. This notion of purification, of actually rendering clean that which is impure, dirty even, as in the case of the leper, is becoming central to my work. What is clean? What is to become whole? Can purity exist with impurity? Is something more pure if it is impure? These are just some more questions driving my work. I could go on and on, as there is so much locked into this painting for me. But for now, this painting is “Cappella Ospedaliera della Cittadella della Salute di Campo di Marte”, or “Hospital Chapel of the Health Citadel of Campo di Marte”. #painting #oilonjute #oilpainting
Time to post a new painting. I have been painting “like I’m possessed”, as one of my classmates says of her own work, but not posting anything. This is the logical continuation of my work around religion. This particular painting is a piece about a hospital chapel- a space that I find infinitely fascinating, confusing, curious, spiritual, profound, and absurd. It is, of course, a space where religion and science meet. But it is also a place where one can witness and feel desperation. Peer in on someone else’s relationship with god, and where one might try and initiate a relationship with god- for the first time, last time, in hope, scorn, faith, or in irrefutable enlightenment. It is also a place where one might come to god for the first time, as a first resort, or for the first time in a new way, as a last resort. These spaces are intimate yet shared. I like in this painting the sensation of “peering in” on the person within. Not knowing if one can, or should enter, as one of my tutors says. The sign on the wall at the back reads “Signore, se vuoi, tu puoi, sanarmi.” This translates to a verse from Matthew 8:2 that reads “Suddenly a leper came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” I find it interesting that the verse reads “sanarmi” – or “make me clean”, not “heal me” or “make me better”. This notion of purification, of actually rendering clean that which is impure, dirty even, as in the case of the leper, is becoming central to my work. What is clean? What is to become whole? Can purity exist with impurity? Is something more pure if it is impure? These are just some more questions driving my work. I could go on and on, as there is so much locked into this painting for me. But for now, this painting is “Cappella Ospedaliera della Cittadella della Salute di Campo di Marte”, or “Hospital Chapel of the Health Citadel of Campo di Marte”. #painting #oilonjute #oilpainting
Time to post a new painting. I have been painting “like I’m possessed”, as one of my classmates says of her own work, but not posting anything. This is the logical continuation of my work around religion. This particular painting is a piece about a hospital chapel- a space that I find infinitely fascinating, confusing, curious, spiritual, profound, and absurd. It is, of course, a space where religion and science meet. But it is also a place where one can witness and feel desperation. Peer in on someone else’s relationship with god, and where one might try and initiate a relationship with god- for the first time, last time, in hope, scorn, faith, or in irrefutable enlightenment. It is also a place where one might come to god for the first time, as a first resort, or for the first time in a new way, as a last resort. These spaces are intimate yet shared. I like in this painting the sensation of “peering in” on the person within. Not knowing if one can, or should enter, as one of my tutors says. The sign on the wall at the back reads “Signore, se vuoi, tu puoi, sanarmi.” This translates to a verse from Matthew 8:2 that reads “Suddenly a leper came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” I find it interesting that the verse reads “sanarmi” – or “make me clean”, not “heal me” or “make me better”. This notion of purification, of actually rendering clean that which is impure, dirty even, as in the case of the leper, is becoming central to my work. What is clean? What is to become whole? Can purity exist with impurity? Is something more pure if it is impure? These are just some more questions driving my work. I could go on and on, as there is so much locked into this painting for me. But for now, this painting is “Cappella Ospedaliera della Cittadella della Salute di Campo di Marte”, or “Hospital Chapel of the Health Citadel of Campo di Marte”. #painting #oilonjute #oilpainting
Time to post a new painting. I have been painting “like I’m possessed”, as one of my classmates says of her own work, but not posting anything. This is the logical continuation of my work around religion. This particular painting is a piece about a hospital chapel- a space that I find infinitely fascinating, confusing, curious, spiritual, profound, and absurd. It is, of course, a space where religion and science meet. But it is also a place where one can witness and feel desperation. Peer in on someone else’s relationship with god, and where one might try and initiate a relationship with god- for the first time, last time, in hope, scorn, faith, or in irrefutable enlightenment. It is also a place where one might come to god for the first time, as a first resort, or for the first time in a new way, as a last resort. These spaces are intimate yet shared. I like in this painting the sensation of “peering in” on the person within. Not knowing if one can, or should enter, as one of my tutors says. The sign on the wall at the back reads “Signore, se vuoi, tu puoi, sanarmi.” This translates to a verse from Matthew 8:2 that reads “Suddenly a leper came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” I find it interesting that the verse reads “sanarmi” – or “make me clean”, not “heal me” or “make me better”. This notion of purification, of actually rendering clean that which is impure, dirty even, as in the case of the leper, is becoming central to my work. What is clean? What is to become whole? Can purity exist with impurity? Is something more pure if it is impure? These are just some more questions driving my work. I could go on and on, as there is so much locked into this painting for me. But for now, this painting is “Cappella Ospedaliera della Cittadella della Salute di Campo di Marte”, or “Hospital Chapel of the Health Citadel of Campo di Marte”. #painting #oilonjute #oilpainting
A painting I made from life of the church of Buchignano, the church in my tiny village of just 40 inhabitants. The mysteries this church holds to me are enthralling. The church has been around for centuries. Behind the painting framing the sculpture of the Madonna and child bathed in a neon light is a 16th century fresco that only a few people in the world have seen. I have yet to see it. I know it probably is in need of restoration, and one day it is a dream of mine to be able to fund this. Who would have entered this church throughout the centuries? What were they seeking? What were they praying for? What motivated them most intimately, and what tormented them? What were their conversations with God like? Every night when I come home I walk by this church, and every night I stop to look inside at the neon light around the sculpture of Madonna and child. The neon light is on, every night, without fail. Frequently the custodian will have lit a lone candle as well, symbolizing the spirit of God. There are rarely masses held in this church, but when there are, the deepest sense of “culto”, and the mist palpable devotion radiate throughout the entire village. I sat in this church many nights painting from life, from the end of summer, into fall, and into the coldest night of the year just a few weeks ago. I watched the seasons change, by night, in this church. I sat with one head lamp propped up on a pew illuminating my canvas, and one on my head to see my palette. I would make the walk through my village with my backpack and easel in hand, with the big iron key that the custodian had so trustingly bestowed into my care deep in my pocket, into the solitude and most beautiful sensation of being the only one in a centuries old church at night, with nothing but the sound of the hills and mountains outside, and the footsteps of the odd passerby outside. If they peeked in the window, they would see me with my easel and my little headlamps. This one is going to @elandinsenn , and I can’t think of a better person or home for it. Ps- the painting on the left in the last picture is another painting that I can’t wait to share with you!
A painting I made from life of the church of Buchignano, the church in my tiny village of just 40 inhabitants. The mysteries this church holds to me are enthralling. The church has been around for centuries. Behind the painting framing the sculpture of the Madonna and child bathed in a neon light is a 16th century fresco that only a few people in the world have seen. I have yet to see it. I know it probably is in need of restoration, and one day it is a dream of mine to be able to fund this. Who would have entered this church throughout the centuries? What were they seeking? What were they praying for? What motivated them most intimately, and what tormented them? What were their conversations with God like? Every night when I come home I walk by this church, and every night I stop to look inside at the neon light around the sculpture of Madonna and child. The neon light is on, every night, without fail. Frequently the custodian will have lit a lone candle as well, symbolizing the spirit of God. There are rarely masses held in this church, but when there are, the deepest sense of “culto”, and the mist palpable devotion radiate throughout the entire village. I sat in this church many nights painting from life, from the end of summer, into fall, and into the coldest night of the year just a few weeks ago. I watched the seasons change, by night, in this church. I sat with one head lamp propped up on a pew illuminating my canvas, and one on my head to see my palette. I would make the walk through my village with my backpack and easel in hand, with the big iron key that the custodian had so trustingly bestowed into my care deep in my pocket, into the solitude and most beautiful sensation of being the only one in a centuries old church at night, with nothing but the sound of the hills and mountains outside, and the footsteps of the odd passerby outside. If they peeked in the window, they would see me with my easel and my little headlamps. This one is going to @elandinsenn , and I can’t think of a better person or home for it. Ps- the painting on the left in the last picture is another painting that I can’t wait to share with you!
A painting I made from life of the church of Buchignano, the church in my tiny village of just 40 inhabitants. The mysteries this church holds to me are enthralling. The church has been around for centuries. Behind the painting framing the sculpture of the Madonna and child bathed in a neon light is a 16th century fresco that only a few people in the world have seen. I have yet to see it. I know it probably is in need of restoration, and one day it is a dream of mine to be able to fund this. Who would have entered this church throughout the centuries? What were they seeking? What were they praying for? What motivated them most intimately, and what tormented them? What were their conversations with God like? Every night when I come home I walk by this church, and every night I stop to look inside at the neon light around the sculpture of Madonna and child. The neon light is on, every night, without fail. Frequently the custodian will have lit a lone candle as well, symbolizing the spirit of God. There are rarely masses held in this church, but when there are, the deepest sense of “culto”, and the mist palpable devotion radiate throughout the entire village. I sat in this church many nights painting from life, from the end of summer, into fall, and into the coldest night of the year just a few weeks ago. I watched the seasons change, by night, in this church. I sat with one head lamp propped up on a pew illuminating my canvas, and one on my head to see my palette. I would make the walk through my village with my backpack and easel in hand, with the big iron key that the custodian had so trustingly bestowed into my care deep in my pocket, into the solitude and most beautiful sensation of being the only one in a centuries old church at night, with nothing but the sound of the hills and mountains outside, and the footsteps of the odd passerby outside. If they peeked in the window, they would see me with my easel and my little headlamps. This one is going to @elandinsenn , and I can’t think of a better person or home for it. Ps- the painting on the left in the last picture is another painting that I can’t wait to share with you!
A painting I made from life of the church of Buchignano, the church in my tiny village of just 40 inhabitants. The mysteries this church holds to me are enthralling. The church has been around for centuries. Behind the painting framing the sculpture of the Madonna and child bathed in a neon light is a 16th century fresco that only a few people in the world have seen. I have yet to see it. I know it probably is in need of restoration, and one day it is a dream of mine to be able to fund this. Who would have entered this church throughout the centuries? What were they seeking? What were they praying for? What motivated them most intimately, and what tormented them? What were their conversations with God like? Every night when I come home I walk by this church, and every night I stop to look inside at the neon light around the sculpture of Madonna and child. The neon light is on, every night, without fail. Frequently the custodian will have lit a lone candle as well, symbolizing the spirit of God. There are rarely masses held in this church, but when there are, the deepest sense of “culto”, and the mist palpable devotion radiate throughout the entire village. I sat in this church many nights painting from life, from the end of summer, into fall, and into the coldest night of the year just a few weeks ago. I watched the seasons change, by night, in this church. I sat with one head lamp propped up on a pew illuminating my canvas, and one on my head to see my palette. I would make the walk through my village with my backpack and easel in hand, with the big iron key that the custodian had so trustingly bestowed into my care deep in my pocket, into the solitude and most beautiful sensation of being the only one in a centuries old church at night, with nothing but the sound of the hills and mountains outside, and the footsteps of the odd passerby outside. If they peeked in the window, they would see me with my easel and my little headlamps. This one is going to @elandinsenn , and I can’t think of a better person or home for it. Ps- the painting on the left in the last picture is another painting that I can’t wait to share with you!
I am showing work in this exhibition on today and tomorrow June 17th/18th @ 133 Gallery @tensionfineart in Penge, London // *BERM* Taking its name from an ancient word for a raised bank that borders riversides and canals, BERM occupies a corridor beside Tension Gallery. The show re-imagines a passageway as the main event, its form alluding to the now-lost Croydon Canal which ran through Penge until 1836, the ruins of which can still be seen in Betts Park in Anerley. Sometimes manmade but at times naturally occurring, the berm offers a way to think about edgelands and throughways. // In my case, a through-way is envisioned as a view into a sacred but fraught space: the hospital chapel, a doorway offering a glimpse into someone’s prayer, desperation, faith, murmur of hope or hopelessness; agony, despair. The doorway is also a physical boundary between the viewer and the worshipper; the skeptic or the believer. Should I enter? For the bear JJ4, a female bear who murdered the 26-year old Andrea Papi while he was out on a run, the doorway means something bleaker, the back of a van she has been thrown into after being anesthetized, captured (thanks to the red tracker on her ear), and hurled at the center of an ethical-moral debate about whether to euthanize (what a word) her, or not. This was the moment in which JJ4 brushed up against her own fate, ultimately saved (salvaged- who plays God here?) by humanity and released back into the “wild”. I wanted to capture that look of pain and relaxation, an extreme, absolutely physical and nearly existential tiredness that animals have when being tranquilized. That deep, deep sleep that can be the border between life and death, them desperate to hold on yet painfully drifting further and further into that sleepy place. “BERM” is on June 17th-18th from 12-5 pm. #jj4 #doorways #pathways #corridors
I am showing work in this exhibition on today and tomorrow June 17th/18th @ 133 Gallery @tensionfineart in Penge, London // *BERM* Taking its name from an ancient word for a raised bank that borders riversides and canals, BERM occupies a corridor beside Tension Gallery. The show re-imagines a passageway as the main event, its form alluding to the now-lost Croydon Canal which ran through Penge until 1836, the ruins of which can still be seen in Betts Park in Anerley. Sometimes manmade but at times naturally occurring, the berm offers a way to think about edgelands and throughways. // In my case, a through-way is envisioned as a view into a sacred but fraught space: the hospital chapel, a doorway offering a glimpse into someone’s prayer, desperation, faith, murmur of hope or hopelessness; agony, despair. The doorway is also a physical boundary between the viewer and the worshipper; the skeptic or the believer. Should I enter? For the bear JJ4, a female bear who murdered the 26-year old Andrea Papi while he was out on a run, the doorway means something bleaker, the back of a van she has been thrown into after being anesthetized, captured (thanks to the red tracker on her ear), and hurled at the center of an ethical-moral debate about whether to euthanize (what a word) her, or not. This was the moment in which JJ4 brushed up against her own fate, ultimately saved (salvaged- who plays God here?) by humanity and released back into the “wild”. I wanted to capture that look of pain and relaxation, an extreme, absolutely physical and nearly existential tiredness that animals have when being tranquilized. That deep, deep sleep that can be the border between life and death, them desperate to hold on yet painfully drifting further and further into that sleepy place. “BERM” is on June 17th-18th from 12-5 pm. #jj4 #doorways #pathways #corridors
I am showing work in this exhibition on today and tomorrow June 17th/18th @ 133 Gallery @tensionfineart in Penge, London // *BERM* Taking its name from an ancient word for a raised bank that borders riversides and canals, BERM occupies a corridor beside Tension Gallery. The show re-imagines a passageway as the main event, its form alluding to the now-lost Croydon Canal which ran through Penge until 1836, the ruins of which can still be seen in Betts Park in Anerley. Sometimes manmade but at times naturally occurring, the berm offers a way to think about edgelands and throughways. // In my case, a through-way is envisioned as a view into a sacred but fraught space: the hospital chapel, a doorway offering a glimpse into someone’s prayer, desperation, faith, murmur of hope or hopelessness; agony, despair. The doorway is also a physical boundary between the viewer and the worshipper; the skeptic or the believer. Should I enter? For the bear JJ4, a female bear who murdered the 26-year old Andrea Papi while he was out on a run, the doorway means something bleaker, the back of a van she has been thrown into after being anesthetized, captured (thanks to the red tracker on her ear), and hurled at the center of an ethical-moral debate about whether to euthanize (what a word) her, or not. This was the moment in which JJ4 brushed up against her own fate, ultimately saved (salvaged- who plays God here?) by humanity and released back into the “wild”. I wanted to capture that look of pain and relaxation, an extreme, absolutely physical and nearly existential tiredness that animals have when being tranquilized. That deep, deep sleep that can be the border between life and death, them desperate to hold on yet painfully drifting further and further into that sleepy place. “BERM” is on June 17th-18th from 12-5 pm. #jj4 #doorways #pathways #corridors
I am showing work in this exhibition on today and tomorrow June 17th/18th @ 133 Gallery @tensionfineart in Penge, London // *BERM* Taking its name from an ancient word for a raised bank that borders riversides and canals, BERM occupies a corridor beside Tension Gallery. The show re-imagines a passageway as the main event, its form alluding to the now-lost Croydon Canal which ran through Penge until 1836, the ruins of which can still be seen in Betts Park in Anerley. Sometimes manmade but at times naturally occurring, the berm offers a way to think about edgelands and throughways. // In my case, a through-way is envisioned as a view into a sacred but fraught space: the hospital chapel, a doorway offering a glimpse into someone’s prayer, desperation, faith, murmur of hope or hopelessness; agony, despair. The doorway is also a physical boundary between the viewer and the worshipper; the skeptic or the believer. Should I enter? For the bear JJ4, a female bear who murdered the 26-year old Andrea Papi while he was out on a run, the doorway means something bleaker, the back of a van she has been thrown into after being anesthetized, captured (thanks to the red tracker on her ear), and hurled at the center of an ethical-moral debate about whether to euthanize (what a word) her, or not. This was the moment in which JJ4 brushed up against her own fate, ultimately saved (salvaged- who plays God here?) by humanity and released back into the “wild”. I wanted to capture that look of pain and relaxation, an extreme, absolutely physical and nearly existential tiredness that animals have when being tranquilized. That deep, deep sleep that can be the border between life and death, them desperate to hold on yet painfully drifting further and further into that sleepy place. “BERM” is on June 17th-18th from 12-5 pm. #jj4 #doorways #pathways #corridors
I am showing work in this exhibition on today and tomorrow June 17th/18th @ 133 Gallery @tensionfineart in Penge, London // *BERM* Taking its name from an ancient word for a raised bank that borders riversides and canals, BERM occupies a corridor beside Tension Gallery. The show re-imagines a passageway as the main event, its form alluding to the now-lost Croydon Canal which ran through Penge until 1836, the ruins of which can still be seen in Betts Park in Anerley. Sometimes manmade but at times naturally occurring, the berm offers a way to think about edgelands and throughways. // In my case, a through-way is envisioned as a view into a sacred but fraught space: the hospital chapel, a doorway offering a glimpse into someone’s prayer, desperation, faith, murmur of hope or hopelessness; agony, despair. The doorway is also a physical boundary between the viewer and the worshipper; the skeptic or the believer. Should I enter? For the bear JJ4, a female bear who murdered the 26-year old Andrea Papi while he was out on a run, the doorway means something bleaker, the back of a van she has been thrown into after being anesthetized, captured (thanks to the red tracker on her ear), and hurled at the center of an ethical-moral debate about whether to euthanize (what a word) her, or not. This was the moment in which JJ4 brushed up against her own fate, ultimately saved (salvaged- who plays God here?) by humanity and released back into the “wild”. I wanted to capture that look of pain and relaxation, an extreme, absolutely physical and nearly existential tiredness that animals have when being tranquilized. That deep, deep sleep that can be the border between life and death, them desperate to hold on yet painfully drifting further and further into that sleepy place. “BERM” is on June 17th-18th from 12-5 pm. #jj4 #doorways #pathways #corridors
I am showing work in this exhibition on today and tomorrow June 17th/18th @ 133 Gallery @tensionfineart in Penge, London // *BERM* Taking its name from an ancient word for a raised bank that borders riversides and canals, BERM occupies a corridor beside Tension Gallery. The show re-imagines a passageway as the main event, its form alluding to the now-lost Croydon Canal which ran through Penge until 1836, the ruins of which can still be seen in Betts Park in Anerley. Sometimes manmade but at times naturally occurring, the berm offers a way to think about edgelands and throughways. // In my case, a through-way is envisioned as a view into a sacred but fraught space: the hospital chapel, a doorway offering a glimpse into someone’s prayer, desperation, faith, murmur of hope or hopelessness; agony, despair. The doorway is also a physical boundary between the viewer and the worshipper; the skeptic or the believer. Should I enter? For the bear JJ4, a female bear who murdered the 26-year old Andrea Papi while he was out on a run, the doorway means something bleaker, the back of a van she has been thrown into after being anesthetized, captured (thanks to the red tracker on her ear), and hurled at the center of an ethical-moral debate about whether to euthanize (what a word) her, or not. This was the moment in which JJ4 brushed up against her own fate, ultimately saved (salvaged- who plays God here?) by humanity and released back into the “wild”. I wanted to capture that look of pain and relaxation, an extreme, absolutely physical and nearly existential tiredness that animals have when being tranquilized. That deep, deep sleep that can be the border between life and death, them desperate to hold on yet painfully drifting further and further into that sleepy place. “BERM” is on June 17th-18th from 12-5 pm. #jj4 #doorways #pathways #corridors
