Noelle Herceg - Matter 1 (flower petal dye on paper, 14" x 11" x 1.5", 2019)
In the series Matter, ephemeral materials including flower petals, cabbage, mowed grass—fallen bodies that are traces of another action or force—soak into curled up blank pieces of paper. When these parcels rot in abstracted patterns of line, line of their own language, what remains are stains of time. With cabbage, I think of my mother in her garden, and my Slovak heritage. As that presence rots, so too does the image of my mother. Or my grandfather’s knowledge of my family’s history dating generations back, now rotting. Matter dissolves and disintegrates, and our communication is left as recorded story.
In the series Matter, ephemeral materials including flower petals, cabbage, mowed grass—fallen bodies that are traces of another action or force—soak into curled up blank pieces of paper. When these parcels rot in abstracted patterns of line, line of their own language, what remains are stains of time. With cabbage, I think of my mother in her garden, and my Slovak heritage. As that presence rots, so too does the image of my mother. Or my grandfather’s knowledge of my family’s history dating generations back, now rotting. Matter dissolves and disintegrates, and our communication is left as recorded story.
In the series Matter, ephemeral materials including flower petals, cabbage, mowed grass—fallen bodies that are traces of another action or force—soak into curled up blank pieces of paper. When these parcels rot in abstracted patterns of line, line of their own language, what remains are stains of time. With cabbage, I think of my mother in her garden, and my Slovak heritage. As that presence rots, so too does the image of my mother. Or my grandfather’s knowledge of my family’s history dating generations back, now rotting. Matter dissolves and disintegrates, and our communication is left as recorded story.