Description
Archival giclee print on heavyweight Canson Aquarelle fine art paper, with hand painted metallic pigment background.
Limited edition of 20 (signed and numbered), size 100 x 100 cm / ca. 39.4 x 39.4 in
Snakes I is derived from an original ink painting by Arlette Ess, digitally reworked to heighten its intensity and complexity. The background is hand painted in dark metallic pigments, which enhance the perceived depth and add an extra dimension of materiality.
Dozens of finely textured snakes are rendered in striking and strangely familiar colours, reminiscent of jewel tones of emerald, sapphire, ruby, citrine, amethyst and obsidian. Overlapping in semi-translucent layers, they appear to move organically in a spectral entanglement of texture and form.
Across cultures and centuries, the snake has been a potent mythological symbol, at once revered and reviled. It coils through our collective unconscious as healer and destroyer, protector and deceiver. It is the ouroboros of ancient alchemy, the serpent in Eden, Kundalini energy, the feared viper… in its many forms the snake elicits a uniquely dual emotional response of fascination and fear in equal measure. However, in Snakes I there is no value judgement, the symbolic ambivalence that snakes have carried through history is merely infusing the image with layers of complexity, providing space to reconnect with our deeper desires and fears. The snake as a symbol is first and foremost a healer and an ancient world creator, hopefully guiding us to heal the deep rifts in our inner and outer worlds.
This work is at once soothing and slightly unsettling, fluidly playing with ancient symbolism and ambiguity alongside contemporary ideas. It can be perceived as a meditation on complexity, interdependence, and the beauty found in entanglement. It invites the viewer to confront a multifaceted reality, to embrace layered truths, and to find flux within form. The visceral beauty of natural form is both celebrated and abstracted into an intertwined whole, embodying a visceral tension between individual and pattern.
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