Melanie’s World
04/10/13 15:57 Filed in: Logbook
Melanie attached the image of a pirogue with two fishermen on board onto a piece of the wooden fishing boat washed up on a beach in the Philippines. These boats have then been reincarnated in The Explorer. I look at it on a wall at home. While he seems to watch the river, the Chao Phraya, through the window.
I imagine that I am on that pirogue, which from here seems to head towards the river and then into the Gulf of Thailand. Before perhaps heading to the Philippines. Or to Borneo, the Indonesian islands, a dot in the Sixth Continent.
It is one of those times that you ask yourself that same old question: “What am I doing here?” It's all you can think about and you lose yourself like a sailor losing his way on the ocean, not knowing which port to make for or having no final destination. He just keeps sailing as though on a ghost ship.
There is a feeling of being out of one's depth, and at the same time stranded and lost. Which might explain my long absence from Bassifondi. But it's good to take a break now and then. Like waiting for the prevailing wind to decide for you.
The Explorer is one of the works in Melanie's latest exhibition, entitled Traces. She gave it this name because, she says, she wanted those pieces of wood to deliver a message: less chaos, more essence.
Melanie Gritzka del Villar, a vague mixture of Louise Brooks and Frida Kahlo, is a half-German, half-Filipino artist who lives in Asia and Europe. It is probably this hybrid, cosmopolitan nature that characterises her work, both in the technique, using collages of different materials, and in the content, puzzles of different worlds.
For now, Melanie's world is in Bangkok. Her studio, in the popular north-eastern district, is inside a grey building where her fellow artists, designers and creatives of the “Thai post-modern art society” are based. It is called Hof Art and has a Bauhaus-like image, underlined by the name Hof , which recalls the German “place”. In fact, Hof is an acronym of Highly Optimistic & Friendly.
The Explorer led me to Melanie’s world. It was like a breath of fresh air.
I imagine that I am on that pirogue, which from here seems to head towards the river and then into the Gulf of Thailand. Before perhaps heading to the Philippines. Or to Borneo, the Indonesian islands, a dot in the Sixth Continent.
It is one of those times that you ask yourself that same old question: “What am I doing here?” It's all you can think about and you lose yourself like a sailor losing his way on the ocean, not knowing which port to make for or having no final destination. He just keeps sailing as though on a ghost ship.
There is a feeling of being out of one's depth, and at the same time stranded and lost. Which might explain my long absence from Bassifondi. But it's good to take a break now and then. Like waiting for the prevailing wind to decide for you.
The Explorer is one of the works in Melanie's latest exhibition, entitled Traces. She gave it this name because, she says, she wanted those pieces of wood to deliver a message: less chaos, more essence.
Melanie Gritzka del Villar, a vague mixture of Louise Brooks and Frida Kahlo, is a half-German, half-Filipino artist who lives in Asia and Europe. It is probably this hybrid, cosmopolitan nature that characterises her work, both in the technique, using collages of different materials, and in the content, puzzles of different worlds.
For now, Melanie's world is in Bangkok. Her studio, in the popular north-eastern district, is inside a grey building where her fellow artists, designers and creatives of the “Thai post-modern art society” are based. It is called Hof Art and has a Bauhaus-like image, underlined by the name Hof , which recalls the German “place”. In fact, Hof is an acronym of Highly Optimistic & Friendly.
The Explorer led me to Melanie’s world. It was like a breath of fresh air.
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