Art
Lenore
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” – Merely this and nothing more.
Edgar Allan Poe
Lenore reflects the brief moment of seeing the reality of the trauma spectacle and remembering she is made of grief or birds. Like in Poe’s passage, the reality of grief is sensed but when spoken seems to hide, disguised in uncomfortable control and longing within a culture of avoidance. Largely in North America the worst thing to do is to “crying uncontrollably” after a death, it brings with it the implied accepted norm to control not only emotions but the crying as well. In Polish and Lenape there are no phrases to correspond with crying uncontrollably because there is no community shared assumption embedded in the language that people can be expected to want to control crying and emotion at a death.
For this piece I looked at Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp himself said, “My aim was a static representation of movement, a static composition of indications of various positions taken by a form in movement—with no attempt to give cinema effects through painting.” Through Lenore, I have also tried to show static grief.
Mixed Media Collage Print on Hahnemuhle's William Turner paper and mounted to wood canvas. Shipping included in price.