Ephemeral Journey is an exhibition about human existence and the mystery of life itself. This series of works is an exploration of the two entities of our being: body (matter) and soul (energy). I have always been intrigued about their connection, as well as with the invisible energy field that surrounds us allowing us to exist in this present moment. Each painting takes us on a journey in which the relationship between subject and substance is unraveled or unveiled.

 

13 acrylic on canvas paintings combine abstraction and figuration, blurring the lines between these two to evoke entities composed both by matter and energy. Organic shapes, dynamic straight lines, transparencies and an underlying geometry in some cases create a stage upon which the human figure appears and merges within. In this uncertain state I have captured forms which are  moving, transforming and evolving. Figures are immersed in the painting's own movement, worked with subtle features and limits that disappear into an eternal dimension. Life is a journey with no real beginning or end; everything and everyone is continuously changing and cycling. Antoine Lavoisier (prominent French chemist 1743-94) said…..

 

‘... Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.”

 

The transformation of energy and matter is our starting point to imagine and visualize this body and soul connection coming  together in movement only for a second frozen in time like a photograph capturing an ephemeral moment of existence which will fade.

 

The context for this exhibition and the specific place where these paintings have been created influenced their development. After 3 months traveling through Thailand and Indonesia, by intuition and chance I arrived in Hoi An, a place where I felt an immediate connection. Hoi An’s energy, natural landscapes and history written in each of its ancient walls, created a perfect setting for a new kind of journey; an inwards one to my own soul. In Vietnam I have experienced a new encounter with my spirituality, especially by witnessing and experiencing how religion is practiced here,  bonding the physical and spiritual world closer together.
 

This exhibition is an invitation for the audience to connect, to feel, and to be present, to engage for a moment with the world unseen, with what lies beneath what's evidently visible to our eyes and experience your own unique existence in the here and now, the only time which truly exists.

 

Katarina Abovic

2023