NON-ARTISTIC SELF-PORTRAIT
Fine Art Print • 100 % cotton
Hahnemühle Bright W. 310 g
14,3 x 21 cm - 5 ¾ x 8 ¼ in
Edition 1-30 + 5 APs
20,3 x 30 cm - 8 x 11 ¾ in
Edition 1-8 + 2 APs
The young Belgian artist Mitya (°1999) gives plastic form to fragments from her innermost self: the representations she shows speak from her subconscious and are particularly close to her living environment and world of ideas. In this sense they are even candid self-portraits now and then. We can take a look at drawings from her ‘diary’ and perceive numerous themes: collective and individual angst, the rancid side of life, discrimination due to philosophy of life, race, sex, etc.
Man takes centre stage in her outbursts of moods especially his imperfection as a rare mammal which is capable of torturing, murdering and exterminating his peers. Man is very often the ‘anti-man.’ Mitya judges but does not condemn. She wants to build a bridge: to seek what binds us instead of what separates us.
Mitya's plastic representations come spontaneously into being. She creates her artefacts at a ‘flick of the wrist,’ often in a trance, which she experiences as liberation. Sometimes her unfinished figures look like zombies which roam over the material used. She keeps the round forms of often mercilessly naked bodies, however, and thus idealizes the human appearance nonetheless, although these figures can make a contorted impression.
Mitya uses no donation titles – titles which describe the concrete meaning of her works of art. She gives her brainchildren only non-titles, as a means of communication, because overexplicit information would only influence the interpretation of the work.
The real shape of her outpourings is the one the beholder wants to see. She thus provides an image, but it begins to exist only when an amateur observes his personal version in it. By stimulating the beholder’s creativity, Mitya gives him or her the last word. In this way, the plastic representations she creates acquire numerous shapes and meanings.
Marc PAIRON
