Marta Zgierska & Mateusz Sarello
(work in progress)
The basis of “Garden” are the photographs of Mateusz Sarello, illustrating a morbid past relationship with a woman. The decaying, drying out flowers are real bouquets never offered to her, as well as everything that is impossible to name and express. It is a message for her about “how he is doing”, which can be only conveyed through image. Dried out, shrivelled bouquets reflect the artist’s condition and how he feels with himself.
Black and white still lifes are traces of a past relationship which, despite fading, will never cease to exist and sting with its presence. I try to find myself in relation to such strong works, made just before I came into his life.
I make an attempt to inscribe myself into his internal landscape, to find my own subjectivity in it. I replace flowers with my own body; lips, eyes and ears begin to blossom on the dried out stems. I give new life to the dead plants though a living, present body. Replacing flowers with my own body, multiplied at numerous instances, is a compulsive attempt of marking my presence, coupled with an undercurrent of fear of experiencing yet another loss.