The picture is inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which ceramic or porcelain shards are glued together with urushi lacquer and gold powder to restore broken tea bowls, for example. The aesthetic principle behind this is called wabi-sabi. It is about appreciating the imperfections.
The fact that the world and we ourselves are not perfect needs no explanation. However, in a world that is experiencing a climate catastrophe, this is very obvious. Fires, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, the examples are endless.
The world is in shards and it is questionable if those shards can be put back together again.
The picture was created while engraving glass, which broke in the process. In further work, watercolors were applied and the shards of glass were glued to the canvas. The two shards were joined together with plaster bandages, which were not fused with gold dust, but with watercolor in a striking orange. This gives the broken shards of glass a new meaning.
2024, canvas, broken glass, plaster bandages, engraving, watercolors, 30 x 40 cm