Athanor
If we’re being completely honest, it’s nearly impossible to truly know what another person is ever thinking or feeling. When we are inside our own perceived borders – the ones we know, the ones with which we are familiar – do we even understand ourselves? When we slip through the semi-structures that surround us in every direction, can we possibly understand anyone else? So much of communication is about effort. Sometimes language is too casual, too colloquial; sometimes it’s too overbearing, too overwrought. It can be tough to know how or when to pull back or push through. This is why creating images can be so powerful; but then again, without explanation, we leave a lot up to and for interpretation.
You open any newspaper or publication, and it’s mostly op-ed pieces masquerading as objective journalism. There isn’t much room for interpretation, and the direct subjectivity can be nauseating. Life is supremely weird and complex, and everything feels mashed up on ultra-speed these days. Korean tacos, the Charli XCX-Lorde remix, Bravo crossover shows, the list goes on. But then you occasionally come across the work of an artist like Siro Cugusi, who has chosen to channel the process of alchemy with the title of his first solo exhibition at Sarah Brook Gallery. He slows things down and works and reworks ideas, like a modernist improvising to the magical musings of jazz, but without the fully feigned romanticism of the past. It’s refreshing to see someone embrace the rhythm of improvisation and allow what’s old to become new and what’s new to become old.
Here, in Athanor, there is an expansive grouping of primarily black-and-white drawings with occasional colors sprinkled in to pop here and there, like goth in reverse. There are two sizes of varying compositions, and there are plenty of allusions to the real world – a more still life, if you will – but everything is suspended in some sort of tense yet sublime fantasy realm.
When I spent time looking at (and into) these complicated framed pictures while standing in Sarah’s front space, what did I interpret? Rube Goldberg feeling the squeeze? Drama! Pinwheel head? Pinhead! Prehistoric wax star, strutting with sex appeal? Hollywood! A nipple, a speaker, a fisherman trying to seek her? Crime!
How about you? What do you see?
-Keith J. Varadi, July 2024