Poiesis

(2005-2008)

  

“Every poem begins with a lump in your throat”

-Robert Frost

 

     

Poïesis (Ancient Greek: ποίησις) is etymologically derived from the ancient term ποιέω, which means "to make". This word, this is the  root of our modern poetry. Martin Heidegger refers to it as a 'bringing-forth', using this term in its widest sense. He explained poiesis as the blooming of the blossom, the coming-out of a butterfly from a cocoon, the plummeting of a waterfall when the snow begins to melt.

 

Stories inspire me to paint.  Poetry and music fuel the passion for me to create.

 

"A poem can change your life.

In poems, we discover the words

and images to understand and

interpret the world. Whether writing

birth songs or eulogies, love vows or

political anthems, lyric outbursts or

vast narratives, great poets throughout

the ages transform ordinary experience,

thought, and emotion into something

memorable."  

- Dominique Raccah

    

The purpose of this body of work is to present art which uses mark-making to express my emotional responses to inspirational writings. In this art series I have developed my own unique marks albeit the content of my work focuses on people whose lives have been stolen and may have been triggered by my father's sudden and horrible death.        

     Although I cannot ignore the physical and emotional horrors which befell these people in the stories and poems which I have read, I chose to dwell on the hope held by the survivors and their unforgettable journey. The importance of these chosen writings is the motivation behind my images places them. The marks of early human precursors to writing have direct influence on my work in the form of symbols and shapes which help me to develop my own visual language.

             My actual process I use to make these paintings/drawings, rather the rituals I use in the act of painting are almost sacred and sometimes seem more important than the final painting. In creating this body of art I have experienced a powerful emotional and intellectual journey and hope that these strong emotions are translated in my images. The death of a loved one is a universal experience and the resulting emotions affect all of us.  My father's death is the beginning of my interest in making marks about tragic losses. This led me on this path of discovering the strength people seem to find to survive even the most threatening and dangerous experiences. While I cannot erase the physical and emotional scars that accompany such loss, through my art I hope to make them visible for the world to see and feel as if by osmosis as Leo Tolstoy believed “Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain signs, hands on to others, feelings which he/she has lived through, and that others are infected by those feelings and experience them through art”