“People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible. I myself felt invisible for a period of time, incorporeal. I seemed to have crossed one of those legendary rivers that divide the living from the dead, entered a place in which I could be seen only by those who were themselves recently bereaved. I understood for the first time the power in the image of the rivers, the Styx, the Lethe, the cloaked ferryman with his pole. I understood for the first time the meaning in the practice of suttee. Widows did not throw themselves on the burning raft out of grief. The burning raft was instead an accurate representation of the place to which their grief (not their families, not the community, not custom, their grief) had taken them.”
The year of magical thinking. Joan Didion
***
The poppy is a wild and delicate flower. It has been used for a long time as a symbol of peace, sleep and death. It is a special flower. It does not allow to be cut, it decomposes and falls apart quickly. The brilliant color and vibrancy that it presents in the field does not last even a few minutes in our hands. If we want to keep it, to make it remain, it will be necessary to elaborate it, work it in such a way that it does not spoil. The resulting, imperfect, nature will be much more complete and elegant… and will remain.
Love and beauty are the two fundamental challenges of the human being and it takes a lifetime to understand them.
Beauty repairs.
***
Photograph on 100% cotton Hahnemühle paper with pigmented inks, natural walnut wood frame and museum glass (70% anti-reflective and 90% UVA protection). Red collection (51 pieces). White collection (32 pieces). Numbered and signed work (25 editions of each piece). Each piece comes in a black case, with "Jaime Sicilia" stamped on the cover, specially designed for this project.
“People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible. I myself felt invisible for a period of time, incorporeal. I seemed to have crossed one of those legendary rivers that divide the living from the dead, entered a place in which I could be seen only by those who were themselves recently bereaved. I understood for the first time the power in the image of the rivers, the Styx, the Lethe, the cloaked ferryman with his pole. I understood for the first time the meaning in the practice of suttee. Widows did not throw themselves on the burning raft out of grief. The burning raft was instead an accurate representation of the place to which their grief (not their families, not the community, not custom, their grief) had taken them.”
The year of magical thinking. Joan Didion
***
The poppy is a wild and delicate flower. It has been used for a long time as a symbol of peace, sleep and death. It is a special flower. It does not allow to be cut, it decomposes and falls apart quickly. The brilliant color and vibrancy that it presents in the field does not last even a few minutes in our hands. If we want to keep it, to make it remain, it will be necessary to elaborate it, work it in such a way that it does not spoil. The resulting, imperfect, nature will be much more complete and elegant… and will remain.
Love and beauty are the two fundamental challenges of the human being and it takes a lifetime to understand them.
Beauty repairs.
***
Photograph on 100% cotton Hahnemühle paper with pigmented inks, natural walnut wood frame and museum glass (70% anti-reflective and 90% UVA protection). Red collection (51 pieces). White collection (32 pieces). Numbered and signed work (25 editions of each piece). Each piece comes in a black case, with "Jaime Sicilia" stamped on the cover, specially designed for this project.
