Bright images. From their clarity rises a shadow — a threat concealed in the winding line, a whisper of doubt, of insecurity.
First the brilliance, the beauty. Then the figure: empathy that unsettles, a trace of danger that lingers. Harmony returns, delight seduces, and yet beneath it something abrasive insists. A fertile image — seeded with memory.
The journey moves between delight and unease. It asks us to pause, to lean closer, to follow the subtle contrasts, the quiet shifts, the constant changes of direction — as in life.
The fertile image does not resolve; it opens. It multiplies paths, offers spaces for thought, for expansion, for contemplation. Reality continuously immerses us in these images — flashes of lucidity, encounters with what is to come.
The process of creating an image is the precise staging of an encounter. It begins with a stimulus — an object, an action, a stain. From this initial spark unfolds a work of distillation: a situation is pared down, purified, so that the stimulus may reveal itself at its fullest intensity. The object is then set into motion, placed within shifting scenarios, accompanied by other forms or figures that act as mirrors, foils, or amplifiers. Sometimes they heighten its singularity; other times they strip the image bare, clearing away distraction. In that insistence, the painting finds its form.
Joana Lucas
Berlin, February 2012