'Laundromat/Laverie/Wassalon'
hoop is 'n seepbel
en ons blaas dit aan, ons blaas dit op
maar die asem bly nooit binne nie
dit vind 'n gaatjie en...
breek!
soos 'n kuiken deur 'n dop.
This work was created for the ESCAP3 Gallery Group Exhibition: 'Know Thyself' (Monday 04 July – Friday 30 September 2022). In answer to the exhibition’s theme – and thereby in seeking the first of the Delphic maxims – a scene is constructed through pseudo-religious symbols. These symbols argue for the mystic experiences that underlie deep self-knowledge.
The work takes American Buddhist writer Jack Kornfield’s 'After the ecstasy, the laundry' (2001) far too literally. Following this absurdity, the drawing appropriates symbology from late Middle Age paintings by Flemish masters to construct a scene of ecstasy on laundry day. The healing cloth held by the saint (known as a vernicle by art historians) in Hans Memling’s 'Saint-Veronica' (c. 1470) is recast as fresh, white laundry. The throne from Jan van Coninxloo’s depiction of 'The Virgin and Child Enthroned' (c. 1530) becomes the divine laundromat.
Jan van Coninxloo l 'The Virgin and Child Enthroned' l c. 1530 l The National Gallery, London, U.K