Emmi Tavela
All Images Disappear
20 June–14 July 2024
The exhibition is closed on Midsummer Eve and Midsummer Day 21 and 22 June.
The exhibition features tempera paintings and an installation. My works are based on the chaos in my mind and the contradictions puzzling me in my daily life. My thoughts often run around in circles and my mind produces harsh inner dialogue. For me, painting is a conversation, an encounter moving towards silence. Thematically, my work takes place within the framework of the Orthodox world view and draws on the contemplation of questions arising from it.
A key theme of the exhibition is a change of mind. In my works, I reflect on the limited nature of time and the consequences of right and wrong choices, particularly from the perspective of error and getting lost. In the background, there is the idea of freedom of choice. The freedom to choose between good and bad, to make mistakes and get lost, to change one’s mind, to make a different choice and start over. To make new mistakes, to repeat the same mistakes, to get lost again.
The series of works on display is a visual representation of personal inner dialogue stimulated by questions related to temporal and eternal life. How much time do I still have to get lost? What will I have and what will be left of me when time runs out? The exhibition title, “All Images Disappear,” refers to that moment when worldly things lose their significance.
The visual world of the exhibition examines the loss of paradise and its consequences as well as suffering and resurrection, through which the gates of paradise open again. In order to come back, one has to have a change of mind, the spirit and the body turning back towards Good, the soul reaching towards Beauty.
In addition to the paintings, the exhibition includes an installation made up of paint rags spread out on the floor and fabric flowers growing from them. The installation makes the painting process visible. The cloths I use to clean my brushes are evidence of the work done, traces of the painting path. The paint-covered cloths, waiting to be discarded, also depict the lived life and its ending. The paint rags form a grave from where the flowers reach towards the sky symbolizing eternal life. At the same time, the white cloth represents the birth of new thoughts, new questions and new paintings, ever-present new possibilities.
Contact details
emmitavela(a)gmail.com
https://www.emmitavela.com/
