Nel Verbeke
The place of melancholy, 2014
ashed ash wood
183 x 80 x 50 cm
unique
A human-sized, dark-wooden structure, stands like an entity unto its own. Its sculptural, monumental, presence pauses the surrounding light and sound and nearly negates any known time and space. Approaching it, it seems to absorb you into a state of contemplation, more personal and private then before.
The work is a result of a quest for a material place for melancholy. An inviting refuge of stillness and seclusion, in the same time real and divine. A place where one can fulfil an act of melancholy in privacy and reflection.
The shape itself is sculpted out of one massive ash tree, susceptible to the characteristics of the wood's continuous idiosyncrasies through time and circumstances. The residues of the tree where then burned and the ashes used to coat the sculpture. It, as such, reflects the confluence of what appears and disappears, what is lost and what remains.
ENQUIRY
