Look At Me Without Seeing Me
The true value of a work of art springs from the authenticity of personal experience, often revealed in moments of extreme vulnerability.
In the penumbra of a room, a woman full of experiences and quirks, putting the multiple facets of her personality under the magnifying glass, seeks her inner change. It seems to oscillate between prayer and sensual memories, in a dance of consciousness that transcends time and space. The half-lit room, filtering the sun's rays through the heavy curtains, seems to be framed in a Chiaroscuro painting by Caravaggio, a viewing room capturing the silhouette of a sick melancholy, of an exaggerated sentimentality, very similar to that of greenhouse plants, that cannot withstand the weather of nature.
The sought-after God does not make his presence felt anyway, but leaving her alone with her tumultuous thoughts, from the original chaos of sin to have been truly beautiful, a being enlightened by the gift of aesthetics through which reflects man's ability to feel emotion in the face of works of art. How could she find the balance between spirituality and sensuality, between past and present?
As she prays, her mind travels to memories long locked away in the chest of memory, memories that are reborn now, with renewed force, with each role she makes and plays on a stage improvised by her own mind, for the thirtieth time as if it were the first and last time. Always materializing in palpable mistakes. This reminiscence from a recent past, the living proof of an intense experience to which consciousness returns obsessively, marked by the trajectory of her alert, passionate, tumultuous life, surfaces from time to time, making her totally vulnerable, like an open wound in that the blood continues to flow. And it flows, and flows, without stopping, fueling the pain of being trapped in a finite existence.
Do you accept the truth of being vulnerable as proof of the existence of a work of art that reveals the backstage of your soul, making every experience take on a higher meaning?
When she prays, and she prays with that righteous pain, which comes out only in prayer, her thoughts deepen into a kind of crescendo of silent despair. But now, like a phoenix, these memories are reborn through the mistakes shown in his mind obsessively, compulsively. Always sorrows without reason, fears without foundation and everything that defines the human condition, are justified under the aegis of an interior with the potential of deification, not only through inner turmoil. The truth in her is revealed especially now when, being an adult, she feels helpless, manifesting through callousness and indifference, because in essence, she is just a child who does not know how to be otherwise. He bursts into a maddened, illogical laugh, a sign of a feverish mental state.
This is also a way of releasing the tension built up in the foundation of her mind.
In a state of "Resthesia", a fusion between spiritual zenith and emotional synaesthesia, she explores that transcendent connection with the divine that guides her to a still unclear point of revelation. These disturbances, still weak, but one can feel how they are growing, are not simple human defects, but manifestations of an interior with divine possibilities, in relation to the darkness that descended on the world as a result of its own disharmonious functioning. As such, her vulnerability becomes a gateway to transcendence, a reminiscence from a recent past that marks her life's trajectory, where the blood of her body pulsates with intensity, flows to the depths of her soul.
Her turmoil is also followed from the perspective of Anne Hebert's heroine, from the novel "Kamouraska":
"I must act quickly. To defend myself from the fury of time. To save myself entirely, irrevocably. To come to terms with myself forever. To erase an entire period of my life. To find my candor, my naivety, my charm, my purpose. How long before... It would seem that I'm trying to bring out a single, pressing, distant word. A kind of weight hidden under the ground, known only in the sky. Caught by a long, underground rope. A kind of deep, lost root that continues to feed the memories and emotions deep in my soul."
Do you accept the admission of defeat as a catalyst for deep introspection, to draw out the essence of your soul and give it to the world through a masterpiece?
She knows better now, having admitted defeat, why a work unsigned with her own life's blood has less value for herself. It is certain that inner authenticity is revealed in moments of fragility, when the adult soul feels like a child again. Suddenly, comme un eclair dans la nuit de l'ame, he bursts into a mad, illogical laugh, a sign of a feverish mental state. This laughter, capable of stirring the depths of the being, becomes a catalyst for self-exploration in a course of tumultuous blood that ensures its way forward. To hell or to heaven?
No wonder the tattoo on her right hand, a spider, symbolizes the loss of the last shreds of humanity in human relationships. Does this symbol suggest that she carries in her subconscious a venom capable of paralyzing or even killing her emotional prey? Behind her, a white statue looks at her with the eyes of a silent god, wanting as if to freeze her agony, to satisfy his pride in seeing her fragile, less confident than before. In the same frame, a bald eagle sits stiffly on a wooden peg, glancing back at her every time she looks up at the sky, reminding her that as she feels smaller and smaller, she says to herself, "done, done, it's good". Is this eagle a symbol of her high aspirations or a representation of the omniscient gaze of divinity?
In this moment of intense introspection, we remember the words of Feodor Dostoevsky from "The Brothers Karamazov":
"Active love, compared to dreaming, is a cruel and fearful thing. Dreaming love thirsts for a quick achievement, to be quickly satisfied with the admiration of all. But active love is a deep commitment, a continuous and sacrificial struggle."
These words seem to resonate with the inner struggle of the woman, between the spiritual ideal and the carnal reality of her existence, a way of saying that everything is a game whose stake is the very essence of life, lived with intensity and vulnerability, "Otthathia Atensamphor", finding oneself in the loved one, perhaps the most difficult quest in life. The feverish state of mind can be a catalyst for authentic creation, releasing pent-up creative energies.
Can you turn frustration and the desire to overwhelm the world with emotion into a means of artistic expression, recognizing your vulnerability as evidence of self-seeking determination?
In the search for the self, man oscillates between the desire for transcendence and the attraction to the telluric. As she imagines herself smaller and smaller, telling herself "done, done, it's good," the early associations in her subconscious overwhelm her, making her feel overwhelmed by her own fears and memories. How could she reconcile these memories with her spiritual present so as to create a new foundation for love? She remembers the fire of passion that the photographer and the director, at the same time, awakened, making her feel emotions that she had not thought possible. Was this experience a revelation or a fall from divine grace?
The frustration of not receiving his gift of overwhelming the world with emotion oppresses her, allowing her Ego to surface, to be callous and rude. It is not her fault, but the Ego.
With a bouquet of roses in hand, silent testimony of ephemeral beauty, he breaks a bud, turning it on all sides, contemplating other scenarios, other settings. Wearing black gloves, a symbol of a certain intimacy, she moves through the shadows and sunlight that gently penetrates through a half-open window. Lightly, like Venus from Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", she touches the face of the statue with her palm, as if she were the half that animates it, a tender and sensual gesture. The clocks on the wall outline the time lost, but wanted back, in the struggle with sensual memories. Nothing brings her past back, but the touch gives her temporary relief.
The artist's greatest masterpiece is to express himself authentically through symbols, through various faces, in dialogue with the depths of his soul.
Look at me without seeing me and try to guess what is in my mind, in my soul, in my life. Only then, through deep intuition, imagining what is hidden, will you be able to find out a part, at least a part of who I really am. I still don't know why you're moving away, I don't know how to get closer, but I'm looking forward to the moment when you can really see me.
