as part soliloquy pop-up exhibition at Denver's Alto Gallery
November 2 & 3, 2018
curated by Eric Anderson
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(2024) Statement in retrospect; Soliloquy (Solo) (prelude & demo) is one-half of an artwork made in collaboration with Eric Anderson, but is also able to stand on its own... or be projected somewhere else, in(to) another (up)on another surface, though it was made as a solitary dialogue with Eric Anderson's sculpture. It is also a "cover" of (and duet with) "Blade of Light" (Alexander McQueen / Nick Knight).
Soliloquy is a speech in a play which the character speaks to himself or herself or to the people watching rather than to the other characters . . . we are speaking to ourselves to each other. Almost like Free Jazz, a simultaneous scream into and across the voids, crashing and torqued, spinning and thrashing. Eric and I were each speaking to ourselves as a means of collaborating, by presenting these soliloquies together, things existing in the same space, independently and simultaneously, are related. It is an anarchic gesture.
At the time (and again now), it explores themes of:
beauty, sublime, darkness, abject, tragedy, / hope(less)ness, art nouveau
about beauty, about intensity, about drama, about tragedy and sadness, but also courage.
The imagery in my solo soliloquy (/"cover) presents; mythological and archetypal symbols, elemental imagery (evokes elemental themes, connects to primal forces and natural phenomena), references to suggest an exploration of artistic expression, creativity, and craft, a fascination with the natural world, including flora, fauna, and other phenomena, temporal concepts – a contemplation of the passage of time, mortality, and decay, sensory experience – evokes a rich sensory experience, suggesting a focus on aesthetics, movement, and emotion, and transformation (entropy?) as it hints at themes of transformation, decay, and the passage of time, as well as an interest in the materiality of objects and their symbolic significance.
It was put together rather quickly, as kind of rehearsal, and somewhat provisionally, and is intended to act as a demo for something that could be more complex (and better) in some future setting, some other context, another place & time.
It stands as a statement now about the romance, intensity, poetry, and courage of a life of soliloquies.
