LUSTRE

2017

Acrylic on wood panel, saliva. 60x70cm | 60x60cm.

 

 

The featured works are a series of three panels, where the action of spitting and rubbing has produced polished, shiny forms that emerge from a monochrome background. They were exhibited at Trocadero Art Space as part of the Amylase group show.

 There is an old story that tells about a guest, invited into the sumptuous home of his host. The guest feels an urge to spit, an urge which was normal to satisfy immediately and publicly back then. The guest looks around, and sees beautiful furnishings and objects around him. The floor is of precious marble, the furniture exquisitely decorated, the walls adorned with beautiful paintings. Nothing merits the disrespect of being spat upon. The guest finally decides to eject his saliva on the ugliest part of the room; the host’s face, which he proceeds to do, explaining his decision after the comprehensively shocked reaction of the latter.

In the hierarchy of respect it’s interesting to see how the beauty of the object, the object as art, can surpass the person that has brought it into being as creator or exhibitor. The artist has spat on the raw material and made forms shine through. The glimmer, the reflected light from a dark background, the basic element of beauty emerging from an unreflective, coarse world, vein of gold in dark stone.

The artworks are now  among the wonderful features of the Hosts’s palace. The Host even lesser among his things.

Fearful of the Guest that might see the light bounce off the surfaces.