Cat Village

Shannon critique of Josh L

The piece I’m looking at first seems thin. It is on white paper and is marked with seemingly sparse and slightly unconnected, simple figures. The first thing I notice is what I initially read as a flock of birds. They are black, silhouetted forms and seem to be flying off into the distance, but their shapes are only reminiscent of birds. Some look more like ancient cave drawings or symbols. Some look like bats and some are leaf-like. I next take note of a number of pink marks that appear throughout the piece. Given previous knowledge I know these marks were made with an ink containing the artist’s blood. The two I notice first look almost like spit. A ring seemingly formed by the impact of spit on a vertical surface with a drip emanating from the center. Other smaller drips fall below the main drip and some seem as though they were smeared. Other forms these pink marks take are more amorphous and almost accidental. Two marks in the upper right corner appear behind the flock of “birds.” They look almost like they were made by pressing skin against the surface of the paper. They appear papery and with no clear boundaries. There are small speckles of pink randomly throughout the piece. There is also a form in the lower right corner that seems accidental as well, but could take on any number of shapes implied by the imagination. And finally in the bottom left corner is what looks to be a sort of human form. It is created by broken, black lines. It appears to be a human body with a dog head and is leaning toward the center of the composition in a rather ghost-like way, as though it were floating. It is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian gods and interestingly enough, after a little research, I found that the dog or jackal headed gods of ancient Egypt were often associated with death and the afterlife. Anubis was the main figure I found and he is often known as the god of purification as well as the mortuary god who presided over embalming and protected the dead. He also lead the dead to his father Osiris in the underworld where they would be judged. Another interesting but lesser known god is Upuat who opens the doors for the dead to enter the underworld, and also steers the boat of the sun as it journeys through the dark realm between dusk and dawn.

This floating figure in the corner and the flock of birds seem to inhabit some sort of unearthly space. The paper they inhabit becomes a world for them to exist in, though there is little information given about this world. But the pink drips and disembodied marks compromise existence of this world. The birds and the humanoid form can exist in the space of this world, but the marks seem as though they need a physical surface to rest on. If these two elements, the pink forms and the black, existed in separate spaces I could understand easily the kind of space they inhabited. With the pink the paper itself becomes the physical environment. But with the black forms the paper is not only paper, but a stand in for an alternate world. When combined there is a tension created between the two. But this tension perhaps only creates a more ethereal space, where the concrete and the spectral share the same world, much like Upuat steering the boat through the realm between dusk and dawn. These forms work together to create this otherworldly space, but what do the figures themselves represent?

After viewing the whole piece my mind tends to focus on the violent nature of what I am assuming are spit marks. When one is casually spitting there tends to be little regard for where. It is usually directed toward the ground. But when spit is found on a surface other than the ground it seems to be intentionally aimed. Spitting on something is often seen as a gesture of disrespect. The shape of the spit marks in this piece suggests they were made at close range and with a considerable amount of force, which also lends itself to a feeling of intentionality. These marks are also made with blood. Blood is the substance of life for most living organisms, but when viewed outside the body it tends to represent the opposite. Blood that is outside the body, with the exception of menstrual fluid, is a result of injury or illness. This consideration compounds the violent nature of these marks. On the other hand this blood is also used to make more accidental marks. Though it seems the artist’s intentioned the marks to be there, there is certainly and accidental quality to them. They seem to be a delicate recording of something. The papery, flesh-like marks I described in the upper right corner could be viewed as a human heart. The two marks side by side resemble the left and right ventricle. This then draws me back to the story of Anubis who leads the dead to Osiris in the underworld. There he weighs the heart of the dead to determine their fate. The form of the birds also seem a bit like ancient symbols. In religion and mythology birds are often seen as messengers of the deities, and mediators between humans and the natural world. In ancient Egyptian mythology the Bennu bird can symbolize the rising and setting of the sun.

The more I analyze the elements of this piece the more I find myself led to an in-between space. It seems to be a space between life and death, but I think this can be viewed as metaphorical. It is a kind of transitional space. The earthly pink marks and the unearthly black forms, as I discussed before, seem to create this in-between space. The large amount of empty, white negative space can bee seen as uncertainty or unknowing. The dog –headed deity form in the corner seems to speak of the ancient Egyptian gods of death. These gods existed in the transitional space between life and death. The birds can be seen as communicators between the natural and the supernatural realms. The heart form can be seen, as with the story of Anubis, as the factor that determines where the soul will finally rest. The spit marks seem to represent a hostility towards this uncertain space. They are almost a violent rejection or a disregard for this space. I think the rest of the accidental and unidentifiable pink marks represent a sort of disregard or lack of control over this transitional space. This piece seems to be about a state of unknowing. It is, as stated previously, a transitional space where nothing is concretely defined. And I think it also shows an anxiety and possible disdain for that uncertainty, while at the same time exhibiting a sort of reverence through the mythological symbolism.

At first this piece seemed a little thin, but as I searched it I found quite a lot of depth. The meaning I found took a bit of work to get at, but this may lend itself to the overall meaning of the piece. A transitional space is a place where a great deal of meditation and consideration occur, so perhaps out of the necessity to spend so much time with this piece the viewers themselves are brought into a similar sort of space. Perhaps the idea could be taken further if this piece was used to create an actual space. Where the viewer is engaged in a sort of world created by the artist, so the piece is no longer a representation of a transitional space, but the embodiment of one.