Art Fair
Art15 Lychee One
21 May 2015 – 23 May 2015
London, United Kingdom
An exhibition of recent works by Marlene Steyn.
MAD LOVE
A woman sits in the middle of an empty space. Her eyes appear to be closed. There is a book on her lap called ‘Mad Love’ by Andre Breton. She has already decided that her next exhibition will have this title, but not as an homage. She thinks that love is always mad, just as her paintings are mad. Her eyes open. For a moment she ponders on the idea that love is like a vapor whereas madness is a heat. Her eyes close again. She whispers to herself and rubs her eyes. “If the image is the push and pull of figure and ground, then what is the push and pull of mad love?” Painting always comes late after thought for her or even painting is the laceration of thought. She could never paint by trying to work out the dialectic of madness and love but the enunciation of “O” as an in-between of madness and love, figure and ground produces in her the faintest of trembles indicating a desire to paint. A woman sits in the middle of an empty space. Her eyes are open.
When the paintings start it will be like a cascade. It always is. Meanwhile empty is good because it is the necessary interval in which gestures and figures might accrue.
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