Totems of Being

Curatorial Introduction

An exploration of existence through gesture, memory, and the language of abstraction.

In Totems of Being series, the artist constructs a visual language in which spontaneous gestures, fragmented forms, and overlapping traces converge into an intricate reflection on the nature of existence. Neither entirely chaotic nor deliberately ordered, these compositions inhabit a space between instinct and intention, where each mark becomes a record of movement, emotion, and the passage of time.

The notion of the "totem" serves as a conceptual foundation for the series. Traditionally understood as a symbolic embodiment of identity, belonging, or spiritual significance, the totem is reimagined here not as a fixed image, but as an evolving presence—one shaped by the accumulation of experiences, impressions, and memories. The resulting compositions suggest an archaeology of the self: a visual excavation of the traces that constitute our individual and collective existence.

The artist's visual approach is characterized by an interplay of gestural spontaneity and intricate surface development. Sweeping, calligraphic lines intersect with fragmented strokes, scattered pigments, and delicate networks of color. Marks appear to be repeatedly layered, interrupted, and partially obscured, producing surfaces that possess both immediacy and temporal depth. The paintings evoke elements of automatic drawing and gestural abstraction, while retaining an unmistakably contemporary sensibility.

What distinguishes these works is their treatment of seemingly accidental marks as carriers of meaning. Lines oscillate between the appearance of handwriting, organic structures, and primordial symbols, yet they resist definitive interpretation. Their ambiguity invites viewers to participate in the construction of meaning, discovering associations that shift with each encounter.

Artwork I — An Introspective Landscape

The first composition unfolds across a predominantly pale, luminous ground, punctuated by delicate passages of yellow, green, blue, and muted red. Dark violet and charcoal gestures emerge with particular intensity, their looping and angular movements resembling fragments of an unknown script.

The relative openness of the composition allows individual gestures to retain their autonomy, creating moments of stillness amid the rhythmic activity. Subtle layers of color and dispersed markings suggest the residue of earlier actions, as though the surface has absorbed an ongoing history of creation and transformation.

There is a sense of vulnerability in this painting—an existence that is not yet fully articulated, but continually becoming. Its visual language suggests memory in its most elusive form: incomplete, fragmented, and persistently present.

Artwork II — The Energy of Becoming

The second composition introduces a more concentrated and assertive visual rhythm. Saturated passages of orange, violet, green, and blue intertwine with dark, sweeping gestures, generating a dynamic field of movement and interaction.

Here, the accumulation of marks produces an almost physical density. Lines collide, overlap, and reemerge, creating a sense of continuous activity across the picture plane. The interplay of thick, emphatic gestures and smaller, dispersed impressions generates a distinctive tension between individual expression and collective movement.

Where the first painting suggests introspection and recollection, the second evokes vitality, transformation, and the restless energy of existence. Its forms seem to resist containment, extending across the surface as though engaged in a continuous process of growth and renewal.

A Dialogue Between Two States of Being

Viewed together, the two paintings establish a dialogue between openness and density, contemplation and expression, memory and immediacy.

Rather than presenting opposing conditions, they suggest different manifestations of the same existential experience. One registers the delicate traces that remain; the other embodies the intensity of experience as it unfolds.

Ultimately, Totems of Being series proposes that identity is neither singular nor permanent. Like the layered surfaces of these paintings, being is continuously constructed through accumulation, interruption, transformation, and renewal.

Each gesture is a trace of presence. Each layer is an act of becoming. And each painting stands as a totem—not of what we are, but of all that we have been and might yet become.