Myrthe van der Mark : Girl lives in a village sculptress if you must know

01.03 > 18.05.24

The orange atmosphere experienced when entering the exhibition is the result of a distinct range of wavelengths within the visible spectrum. The name of this colour is derived from the homonymous fruit, which procures its colour from carotene, a photosynthetic pigment that converts sunlight into chemical energy. In fact, while we call the fruit orange, it actually retains every other colour whilst rejecting the orange frequency. The colour orange is associated with fire, energy, amusement, danger, extraversion and the unconventional, as well as with taste and aroma. Next to being an important colour in Hinduism and Buddhism, it has a well established connection with the Netherlands through the House of Orange. The current chromatic circumstances are presumed to be connected to the origins of the girl in question. Beyond the orange basis of the module, an adjacent space emits pure white light. Two separate growing processes integrate the pigments dissolved into the water: the creation of a crystal structure, and the absorption by the vascular system of the carnations. The Organic and the Mineral Kingdoms depicting the dance of the spheres. Skylight domes are produced from thermoformed polycarbonate, and intended to allow natural zenith light into vast interior spaces. Optimal lighting in buildings is an essential factor for physical and mental performance. In the absence of daylight, the constellation of artificially illuminated skylights presented, reveals a variety of inner worlds. Each separate sphere contains the fruits of a different participating person, the Doors of Perception copied on their own printer, each page with personal annotations. Finally the filled forms are scanned into the mother machine, back into the hive mind. The individual becomes a species through variations of the carbon copy (cc). This Elysian environment where internal workings are highlighted is literally the subterranean blueprint of the surface theatre where the performance will be visible. The supporting columns integrated into the installation form the subconscious foundations of the executive level above. Our elevation provides a crystalline perspective by analysing the substructures. The experience incarnated:

 

“I had been struck by the lively dissonance of its colors ... I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.” - The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley

For M

Sacred dances:

 

Fragments of an unknown teaching the coloured drops dissolve in water when consumed they slowly infiltrate the flowerhead breathing exercises infuse the body with liquid spirit basking itself in the fluid intersection of subject and object solutions of solid crystals assume the substance of aviation scanning the soul and alleviating the ascending eagle a persian carpet offering an aerial view of the solar surface the invitation of celestial light through cleansed windows when the sea flows in our veins and the stars are our jewels and the word was made flesh

Myrthe van der Mark retraces the hidden pathways of ancient teachings in her elusive practice. Using seemingly trivial elements we encounter in daily life, she triggers presence of mind in the present moment through the evocation of distant times and places. Researching texts devised to guide us out of the psychic entanglement with the abstract concepts that slowly cemented the fortifications of our worldview into a gilded cage, an entropic network started to unfold. Scattered around the world wide web, labyrinthine libraries and sacred spaces of social harmony, rumours of Mazdaznan leading from the Temple Association through the Brotherhood to the occult origins of Bauhaus crossed with parallel paths. Traces of Bas Jan Ader’s ultimate expedition via Ouspensky’s writings and The Fourth Way by Gurdjieff’s legacy to Theosophy, Sufism and Tantrism. Having had an Anthroposophical education incorporated into a performing arts initiation herself, the resonance of these complementary voices synchronised into a transcendental (celestial) choir. Ironically, these documents containing instructions intended to facilitate realisation and unlocking the gateways of direct experience, are inevitably communicated by means of language, whose inherent pitfalls of subjectivity and multiple interpretations have the inclination to lead us astray. Reference frames of abstract thoughts rendered in encoded systems, indispensable during our journey from receptive newborn individuals to functional members of society, are elementary in the construction of our ego as opposed to the outside world. Reverse engineering these structures to establish reconnection with our primordial essence proves to be the target of philosophers, mystics and sages throughout the ages and across cultures, the ultimate quest. Upon reading Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, we come across the first page, dedicated: ‘For M’. Myrthe accepted the Gift of several dozens of friends, relatives and various people encountered by chance along the way, who each marked their passage through the pages of this remarkable document in their own particular style, from their personal perspective, connecting the specific to the universal in their own individual form.

 

Text by Petrus Paklons

Exhibition Commissioned by Cc Strombeek.