Pentimenti III - Camera scura series, 2024

Jacqueline H-Botquelen  

This captivating work is a masterful blend of geometric shapes and varied textures, dominated by earthy tones and vibrant touches of fuchsia. Each rectangular section overlaps with calculated subtlety, creating an intriguing visual depth. Shades of brown and red prevail, while lighter hues emerge to bring a lively dynamism. Horizontal and vertical lines discreetly structure the composition, guiding the eye through this chromatic labyrinth. The contrast between warm colors and textured areas adds a tactile dimension to the painting. The originality lies in the bold harmonization of colors and forms, inviting endless visual exploration. This work expresses a search for balance between chaos and order, resulting in a piece that is both reflective and energetic.

Exploring the past and the invisible

The camera scura serves as both a method and a metaphor in this series, literally obscuring and abstracting forms, while inviting us to reflect on the nature of memory and perception.

Exploring the contrast between light and shadow, presence and absence, using abstraction to evoke the ghosts of memory, just as the camera scura creates a ghostly projection of the outside world.

The close boundaries between humanity, biodiversity, and the universe create a space where resilience, interconnectedness, and cosmic forces converge.

These concepts, when viewed through his lens, offer a reflection on several levels:

perception, survival and the impossible journey through trauma, whether individual, collective or planetary.

This interconnected vision offers endless possibilities to explore how life, nature, and the cosmos reflect each other in cycles of creation, destruction, and resilience.

Exploring specific ways to translate this cosmic interconnection into an abstract visual language, which also consider more concrete visual or poetic strategies to express these ideas.

These boundaries may be illusory, just as light and shadow in the camera obscura distort and transform the familiar into the unknown.

Just as shadows blur the outlines of a form, reflections suggest that human experience is not separate from the natural world or the cosmic forces that shape existence.

Human emotions, such as resilience, suffering, and hope, are linked to the same forces that govern the biological cycles of life and death in the natural world, as well as the cycles of creation and destruction in the universe. It is all part of the same narrative.

The integration of PENTIMENTI and SHADOWS into the CAMERA SCURA series creates a space where the past, present, and unseen worlds converse. Pentimenti shows us that even when something seems covered over or forgotten, it is still there, influencing the present. Shadows, meanwhile, reminds us of what we cannot fully see: the hidden realms of life and memory.