Written by Nicole Gaudier
Thony Aiuppy‘s work Reticent Slumber (an effigy) will be in the Our Shared Past exhibition, on view in the Stein Gallery from December 17, 2013 to May 25, 2014.
A statement from the artist:
“Memory encompasses neither the entire spatial appearance of a state of affairs nor its entire temporal course…Memory’s records are full of gaps…No matter which scenes an individual remembers, they all mean something relevant to that person, though he or she might not necessarily know what they mean.’
Siegfried Kracauer, Memory Images, 1927
Thony Aiuppy, Reticent Slumber (an effigy), 2013, from the film still Ghostly Baby, Oil on panel
The collected body of work found in Our Shared Past is an archive of experiences that happened at best on an unconscious level. While I worked consciously on this project, making choices to best exemplify the experiences that I encountered and participated in, it took several months before I could even engage the materials that would represent and stand in for a memory that was my own. The use of oil paint in my piece correlates to the fluid identity that memories hold.
This work is painted over an unprescribed period of time. Each layer of oil pigment applied lays on top of the previous one, building both a presence and an essence of the figure bound to the surface of the wood panel. This allows the interlocutor to share in this elected moment of time. A sense of movement is activated by the painterly brushstrokes and the pentimenti created offers not only a sense of time passing but at the same time points to the vitality of life that is represented in a young life. Because memory can only be perceived in time outside of the occurrence of original events, whether real or imagined, it is fitting that the experiences within this catalog of work exude a similar notion.”
There will be artist appearances at the Stein Gallery January through April. Each Saturday, artists from the exhibition will be in the Gallery from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Others will make appearances throughout the day on Weaver Free Saturdays, and on Tuesday evenings during the exhibition.
