Sculptures

"És a minha flor" (You are my flower)

Stoneware, ballast technique fired at 1250ºC in a eletric kiln. 2013

80 × 80 × 70 cm

We absorb all sensations in us like sponges. Petal to petal, a flower is constructed in the same way that the human being inwardly builds the white, black red and brown; colors are the meaning of these absorbing sensations: purity, pain, love always based on those feelings.

If nature is a celebration of life then this work is also a celebration of human interaction with it. If nature is a mirror of deep human need outside of the material necessities of our existence, we find another desire deep in our relationship with non-human forms. An animal can be taught to obey, not a flower. We go to them like hungry lovers, immerse our emotions, and engage them as beings which might accept our feelings. We want to touch them in ways we have never been touched before.

To make this happen, this work needs the evolution of its own life form in order to be. It is enough for this form to ‘be’ rather than to be acquisitive, i.e. to ‘have’. The work characterises a relationship to nature which is based on sensation and desire but which is conscious that nature as a life form is distinct and unique. Therefore, any apprehension is not based on copying experience, but giving experience in the making of the work, a heartbeat: the heartbeat of the artist who is aware that this work knows the limits of human experience but realises appropriation is a failure of representation.

A flower, like love, “is many splendored thing.” It is a spectacle in romance and in death. We give it a role and a script and sometimes we think we can control its purpose and function. This work does not have this kind of arrogance. It will not be reduced to ornamental limits. Its creation comes out of the body of the artist: her movement, with arms, hands, fingers feet, hips, legs etc. Therefore, it is a dance of time, as the work appears the movement changes, the value of its production is known by the physical desire to shape, cohere and give space to the imagination and to the body. Why else, does an artist call her output a ‘body of work?’

Sofia Beça says she writes with clay. What else should she do? Nada. If this is her language form then we cannot impose another and think we grasp the intention and meaning of the work until we know what she desires, what kind of sensations produce the image, creation, work. We need our own feelings and thoughts, of course. A circular shape means we need to move, like the artist, as creators of experience.

A flower forces us to recall many sensations: the touch of a lover, the dead in war, a road accident, refugees caught in the crossfire of racism and hatred. A three year old boy from Syria recently changed the world when his dead body was seen by millions on a beach. The flowers that were brought to respect his tragedy meant this was everyone’s tragedy. Like the petals of marigold accompanying the candles lit for the Indian dead on the river Ganges, they ebb and flow with the tide, reminding us, in their colour and discoloration, nature, life and death form a unique relationship and powerful memories.

Sometimes art finds an answer, it has a message. It does what the artist wanted to do when she wakes up in the night. In the age of multiple association, we sometimes lose what it means to truly feel. When I look at Beca’s flower(s) I want to reach out and almost touch, I want to put my lips to the petal, the absorbent ones, next to its neck, my ear to it shell-like aperture, and listen to the songs of a boy who reminds cynics that they are not always stupid and tough, whose death gave the world so much energy, so much life.

Kanwal Sangha

September 2015