The Mourning and The Blessing
>Go to the movie Silvacane Abbey / The Mourning and The Blessing
ABBEY SILVACANE exhibition summer 2011
The peculiar project of installing luminous steles required to move beyond the mere and comforting consideration of the Silvacane's Abbey in its cistercian nature.
At the same time, I sensed that the light, the water of this marshy site, the very nature of this religious building, the imprint of past centuries and lives arose to me as strong referents to develop this project.
It was conceived as part of the "Mourning and Grace" 2011 Exhibit and fitted perfectly the Abbey's dining hall. Likewise, I could not omit the glassworks and chairs created and set by the artist Sarkis (2001) for a work commissioned by the State.
I then undertook the conception of a structural element firmly grounded, i.e. the stele. Steles are monolithic standing monuments either inscribed or sculpted, that can be a body's memory or its witness. To reflect the Abbey's marshy grounds, I decided to fill the horizontal part of the stele with water: a plastic means to assert the work of art within the site.
On the water surface, my floating drawings reflected back like my graphs' hollow voices against the mirror of the stele's vertical side: a reflected image freed up of its carnal exterior, disembodied. To resonate with Sarkis' five glassworks and five chairs, I worked on ten steles.
In the northeastern part of the dining hall less exposed to intense sunlight, I felt impelled to lighten up the steles. I did not feel I could nor should compete with the glassworks' superior light. Therefore, I opted for a stele that would generate not only its proper light but also an induced one that could spread across and within the dining hall stones.
This glowing source emanates from under the steles much like a halo emphasizing an aura feeling, i.e., a mysterious influence inhabiting this absent body!
>Go to the movie Silvacane Abbey / The Mourning and The Blessing