I love it when a
solution presents itself in my dreams…
In 2006 I made
this painting /collage for an exhibition we had in our gallery at the time, in
Copán Ruinas. The canvas measures 135 x 135cm and consists of a thick layer of
Honduran and Guatemalan newspaper, paint, photos and writing. The texts are
from the Popol Vuh (the creation of the world) and several other Latin American
novels and poems (by Gabriel García Márquez, Eduardo Galeano, Rubén Darío and
others), all having to do with the creation of the world or the power of fire
as an element of development as well as a destructive power. The work is a
collaboration between Ronald Reinds, Lise Winters and me. Lise provided the
photos of a bonfire in an indigenous community in Guatemala. Just below the middle of
the right half, I left open a white rectangle on which Ronald projected his short
8mm film of himself reading a newspaper that burst into flames. We presented
the work as an installation during the inauguration, with a mural of flames
painted on the wall behind it and embers, ashes and burned paper underneath it.
When the
exhibition made room for a new one, the painting ended up in my office. I never
even tried to sell it because it is awkwardly big and heavy and besides,
without Ronald’s projection, there was this graceless white rectangle on the
right. For years I planned to “finish” the work, but never came up with the
right solution. Once I thought of filling the space up with an assemblage of
burned embers and cinders. I went out of the way to find pieces of the right
size of burnt wood, but for some reason never got around to glue them on.
A few days ago,
the work appeared in my dream among many other completely inexplicable images. In
my dream it was completely finished... The white of the rectangle was now
black, and on it was a Maya glyph representing fire painted in bright yellow,
orange and reds.
Perfect!
So, six years
after creating this work, I finally finished it. It turned out exactly the way
it looked like in my dream…
Ronald Reinds: http://www.beeldresearcher.tv/
Lise Winters http://www.lisewinters.com/
Ronald Reinds: http://www.beeldresearcher.tv/
Lise Winters http://www.lisewinters.com/
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