TOUCHING

Touching - Aquarelles March 2022
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Painting is a deeply human activity and hence a deeply human ‘product’. In that sense it is never abstract. Color and the figure are somehow present in my paintings, in the sense that boundaries are set for dissolution. The ‘object’ is touched by the world. My body is made of the flesh of this world, says Merleau-Ponty. In that sense we partake in the world, may this be the horizon, the touch, boundaries, memory, emotion and feeling.
TOUCHING is a mediation on closeness, on the embrace on the dissolution of the separation between one and other. It is empathy and love. Especially after the 2 1/2 years of social distancing due to the pandemic, what I seem to miss most is touch. May this be the touch of the gaze, seeing the smile or other facial expressions of my loved ones, friends and, so called strangers, but above all it is the touch of the hand, the embrace, the physical closeness which I have missed most. What does this distance do to us? The loss of physicality and corporeality? It is another retreat into isolation following the imprisonment behind our screens, may this be the PC or handys or tablets. Another flattening out of social relations.
These aquarelles then celebrate closeness, the touch, the merging of one with the other. I am not without you says Ubuntu. I am because I merge with you, with my surround with the world. I partake of you and you partake of me and we partake in this world. What beauty what healing after so many months of isolation.
Touching is love, empathy and partaking in someone or something larger than myself. I am not without you. These aquarelles celebrate union. May this be the touch of your hand, the breath of my love on my skin, the emotion or thought I feel.  I really feel for this especially because of the pandemic. Join in the celebration and enjoy touching again, with your hands, your mind your heart. It is a celebration of being alive.

Gabrielle von Bernstorff-Nahat