The two lapses / They say you can't draw blood from a stone
(as presented in Het Hem, Amsterdam)
Clay, natural pigment, glaze, copper
2020
Exhibited along The haunted villa of Spetses
The building of Het Hem, as a historical former munitions factory, is preserved as a monument and therefore I could not drill or stick anything on its walls during a group show.
I decided to present the ceramic pebbles by inserting them in the existing holes in the walls. They organically merge with the building and communicate with the corrosions from its past history.
Drawing from the pebble mosaic tradition (βοτσαλωτά) of Spetses, I made a series of ceramic pebbles, mixed with natural mineral pigments. They are split in half, revealing their inner stories and hinting at a human action or natural event.
The problem with history is, it keeps happening, which confuses everyone over time, as one thing becomes another again. And again. Just walk in circles for a while, and you’ll see. There’s a little villa in Greece where a certain woman once lived who disguised herself as a man and took off for Italy to study painting all on her own, as only men could do at that time. Rumor has it, after she returned, she went mad, burnt all her canvases, as well as herself, then hunkered down, haunting the place for the next century and a half. And they say you can’t get blood from a stone! But they would be surprised. Sometimes you’ll find instead when you open one up, you can’t stop the bleeding. Stories don’t float above landscapes like gusts, they’re always down in it, and you can tell, because words as innocent as “till” end up meaning all sorts of unforeseen things (glacial sediment; to cultivate the earth; up to a point; cash register...) over time, as plates shift and crush.
— Text about the work by Angie Keefer —
Puce
3D print (PLA)
2020
In the same exhibition, I presented a 3D-printed compass, designed after a compass mosaic shape in the yard of the painter’s villa. Doing research from a distance during the pandemic, I was interested in how digital and physical space come together and the process of remaking and appropriating material elements.
