Hi there. Lately I've been thinking about displacement and re-placement, or the changing of perspective.
Vija Celmins places her viewer in proximity to details of nature that are often overlooked. Her work runs the gamut from pencil on paper to etchings to paintings, often presenting photorealistic renderings of spiders' webs and stretches of starry sky or rippled seawater. There are sculptures too: tiny replicas of rocks, that, when I saw them exhibited, were shown in the same case as the real rocks they were modeled after. They were indistinguishable. It was in front of that display that I felt the power of Celmins' work. It makes you press your nose to the glass, or step right up to the wall on which an image is displayed. You look for her hand in each all too convincing piece, and in doing so notice what you might not have when glancing past the real thing.
Roma Tearne's novel Bone China follows several generations of a Sri Lankan family from the end of British colonial occupation in the 1940s through the civil war that followed to the consequential emigration of most of the family to England. She brings to life the lush Sri Lankan landscape, but also clearly depicts the fallout of colonial rule--the chaos and violence that descended on the island after British withdrawal, and the eternal feeling of displacement that afflicts those who left. While this is not a book that deeply develops characters' interior states, it makes use of sweeping gestures and an airy tone to illuminate a period of history, the particulars of place, and the complexities of a multigenerational family adjusting to a changing concept of home.
I came across Tearne's book while browsing a display at McNally Jackson focused on "The Silent Canon." The signage pointed out that while there are plenty of women authors, relatively few are mainstays of the canon, noting, for example, that of 116 Nobel Laureates in Literature 15 have been women. A selection was presented of lesser known women writers, past and contemporary, from a variety of countries. It's a list I'll keep visiting.
As always, I thank you for being here. I'm going to be trying out a biweekly schedule, so I wish you much good reading and viewing in the next couple of weeks.
Until next time,
S
"It makes you press your nose to the glass, or step right up to the wall on which an image is displayed." That is the effect a true artist has. Beautiful.