Join us for HIEROGLYPHICS, a solo exhibition by current Resident Artist Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai!

Opening Reception: February 18, 6-8 pm

Hieroglyphics is a collection of objects and gestures that arise where language fails. In analyzing Walt Whitman’s use of the poetic image of blades of grass, Lewis Hyde describes how “Natural objects - living things in particular - are a language we only faintly remember. It is as if creation had been dismembered sometime in the past and all things are limbs we have lost that will make us whole if only we can recall them. Whitman’s sympathetic perception of objects is a remembrance of the wholeness of things.” (“A Draft of Whitman” p174, The Gift, Lewis Hyde, 1999) 

Upon learning about the passing of a friend from my adolescence in France, I find myself mute in the face of loss. I was reminded of a story I read, about Emperor Hadrian’s irreconcilable grief over the passing of his young lover, Antinous who drowned himself in the Nile as a sacrifice for his love. The emperor erected a city in his name and created a cult of worship. Countless representations of the youth took shape in marble, stone, coins and reliefs. 

In my own attempt at grasping at my friend’s life, I incised onto glass, my collection of sites, strings of phrases and mythical references. They stand for the many moments across time and geographies that could hint at the mystery of his destiny. He is the Unknown Soldier for whom an eternal flame is lit under the Arch of Triumph on the Champs Elysees. He is Antinous, reborn as Osiris, God of the After Life. His anonymity grants him the eternity of the gods. 

Paris is the city of our youth, which we crafted in our own image. Without him, the once ideal city closes itself and ceases to be a place I can return to. The emperor’s incessant journeys are fueled by the desire for wholeness.