Essential
Fire here represents the innate drive to create, to express self, and
a reflection on what that means to us. For my contribution to the
group show I have created an installation comprising of a home made
telescope and an oil-on-canvas painting.
The
image of a burning monk is simultaneously awe inspiring and
terrifying. I am at awe because to do such a thing as calmly and
peacefully must require an incredible inner strength. I am at awe
when I reflect on the human ability to sacrifice self for an ultimate
higher cause. I am terrified of the human ability to sacrifice self
for a higher cause, especially when one considers the events of the
recent decades where we have seen this power be used to horrific
ends. After all, what defines a higher cause is incredibly vulnerable
to interpretation.
The
image of the burning monk represents a fascination with human mind
and spirit to me, its complexities, its beauty and its pitfalls. It
is my essential fire, what I burn for. Painting this image is an act
of a desire to understand what it is we are made of, as is the
act of constructing a scientific instrument which at once enables the
viewer to observe the image and hinders it by not allowing a full
scale view. And so it is, that even as we seek to understand
things we become increasingly aware of all that is yet obscured.
(Artist
Statement, Mariana Jandova, 2012)