The knot that cannot be untangled

Abstract

“The knot that cannot be untangled” (2020) developed from an end-of-life experience. Moving between the edges of known and unknown, I explored the folds in a hospital bed sheet, and the sense of returning to a universe of energy. This work vitalised absence in the present moment, as quiet compassion in an act of release. In this image luminous tubes curve as if they have a life of their own, free from the body, contemplating peaceful renunciation. In the context of a group exhibition “Apart/A Part” that focussed on sublime aesthetics, the work links with a concept of a dimly revealed world of an unpresentable interface between life and death. The making of the work aimed at both spiritual reflection and reality of surrendering, losing connection. The perspective further finds an echo in Rosi Braidotti's (2019) writing of the "embrainment of the body” and "embodiment of the brain", acknowledging the entanglement of life and the systems we create. The nature of memories is enfolded into our being - in the minute complexity of our synapses. I drew a visual relationship between the tangle of tubes and the synapses of mind. According to Van der Kolk (1991), trauma engraves its own lexicon onto our cells, changing our bodies into unfamiliar entities.