From the Curator:
Dear Viewer,
Welcome to a condensed worldwide lost & found collection. Here you will find objects, ideas, and experiences which have all been either lost or found at some point in time across the globe. Despite the dual nature of this show, we are not here to highlight opposites or juxtapositions. We are not here to compare or contrast. We are here to explore our relationships to the things we feel belong to us and what happens when those relationships change.
Many of the works in this show speak to the losses and gains brought on by the current pandemic. If ever there were a time to take stock of what we have and revaluate what we own, it is now. One does not need to look too closely to observe what major aspects of living have been lost, and what new aspects of living we have found. As a worldwide community, taking stock of the things that have come and gone from our lives can provide a sense of perspective and clarity which is needed in order to move forward.
Many of the works in this exhibition speak to losing and gaining abstract, immaterial concepts, things we can never truly own or lose. We will never hold time, power, shame, or peace in our hands or place them on a bookshelf, but yet we can feel when they enter or exit our lives so viscerally that they always seem to make a mark. Maybe it is time we revaluate those experiences in a new way through new perspectives as well.
If nothing else, this collection should serve to prove how easily parts of our lives can slip away or swiftly enter. Right now it is important to remember how universal those experiences can be.
There are certain things we cannot allow to disappear and losses of life we must come together to prevent.
Before moving forward, please consider taking action to help fellow artists, creatives, and souls at risk in Afghanistan as the urgent situation for refugees and citizens continues:
Lost & Found is the first of many exhibitions to come in which artwork for sale in the show is available for purchase directly on our site in the VM Store. For-sale works are marked in their description, click the link for purchase information to acquire new works and support emerging artists!
Enjoy the show!
-S
Zofie King
Arlington, Virginia, USA
Gatherer
Found objects, acrylic, plaster, encaustic, watercolor, velvet, faux fur, embroidery
FOUND:
During the pandemic, I spent a lot of time in the forest. My senses heightened, I started to notice the myriad of insects and fungi all around. What is collecting really, if not finding? It reminds me of our hunter gatherer ancestors who were always on the lookout for sustenance. I think we still have those impulses, but sublimate them into collecting seemingly random things (antiques, shoes, friends on Facebook…) or even foraging for food even if there is no physical need to do so. The items I’ve collected to create the piece reflect these impulses.
Eliza Fry
Canada
Speaking to the Ancestors in the Voices of the Lost
Mixed media 4’x4’x4’
Lost & Found:
These piece was crated in memory of my young nephew who was brutally murdered. A result of the gang violence that so often takes the lives of urban indigenous youth. This is a direct result of colonialism and the attempted genocide of a people.
Kodi Delaney
Denver, CO, USA
A Companion
Mixed Media/8×10
FOUND:
Whenever I try to explain my mental illness to others, it becomes hard to put the words together to describe the sensations. This has led to family, friends, doctors and employers misunderstanding how my depression has affected my health, and how it continues to control aspects of my lifestyle. I wanted to create specific symptoms and emotions through visual metaphors, which better explain how it feels to have an invisible disability or illness. At times, depression can feel like a constant acquaintance, a fog that follows you day to day and clings to your mind. In my work, the illness is represented in a physical way by flowers and leaves, ensnaring the figures like invisible ropes. The figure has found a companion in the bird, both the representation of hope and light while also being the “canary in the coal mine.” In finding understanding within a mental illness there is both hope and the imminent threat of loss.
Mahnoor Salman
Lahore, Pakistan
Mushk, Longing
Teawash on Wasli/ 33.3cmx 26.6cm, Gouache on Wasli/ 47.9cmx98.7cm
FOUND:
Handwritten letters have always had a special place in my heart as they spill feelings of longing, loss, love and nostalgia.
My artistic practice is based on my personal letters. I use my art to cherish the beautiful human emotions evoked by things from the past that we keep with us.
Handwritten letters and pressed roses have also been an essential element of my work; depicting how even after alot of time has passed whenever one finds those letters and reads them, they get the same feeling. Though, the memory often fades but the emotions remain.
Monique Martin
Canada
Gilded Butterflies
12 x 10 x 6
LOST:
We have lost our authentic selves in the attempt to gild ourselves on social media.
“So we’ll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies“
Shakespeare – King Lear Act V : Scene III
Look how beautiful, glamourous, fun, happy, balanced, zen, successful, rich, valued…. I am. Social media the gilded butterfly of our time, when “likes” became a plural noun. Only the best view, best composition, best “reflection” of who we are appears on social media and the “likes” do seem to matter, social media masquerades as objectivity. When does filter and fact become blurred? When does the footnote of a photo, become the subtitle and when is it the script? Some efforts to make the perfect post takes it to the level of ridiculousness, “influencers in the wild”. Technically we could gild a butterfly and make it more beautiful than it already is but would it be worth the effort and the cost, if the original beauty is forever lost.
Paul Ogunlesi
Lagos, Nigeria
FIRST TIME I FELL IN LOVE (which way series)
Charcoal and Acrylics on acid free paper
LOST:
Art to me is a reflection of who I am, my experiences, my environ and all that hovers around here in my own part of the world. I don’t force myself to describe me, and in my work, I am always the focal point irrespective of the subject I am treating or the situation I am trying to address.
“First time I fell in love” is a metaphorical work borne out of deep pondering about the love I once had for my nation “Nigeria”. The time we never knew other countries exist, countries better than Nigeria, because then she’s just the best we\’ve got and the best there is in our eyes.
This love faded off gradually, due to loads of mayhems hovering around in the nation due to all manners of social vices and bad governance. I do hope I’ll one day find this love again and this hope is all I have.
Adina Andrus
New York
Amulet #20, Amulet #17, Amulet #13
Glazed stoneware, metal and plastic food wrapper, approx. 6x3in
FOUND:
The Amulets submitted are part of “Fortunes of Comfort”, a collection that explores the yearning for belonging in a new place. The artist draws on her personal experiences to highlight the nostalgic connections sparked by finding familiar childhood foods while browsing international grocery stores. Hanging ceramics, collages and beadwork reference elements of prehistoric and folk art blended with modern day food packaging. The result is a display of contrasts: old/new, clay/plastic, lasting/disposable, remote/convenient. Gold accents reinforce the idea of discovery through a treasure-trove of small connections that bind the two. Viewers are invited to identify symbols, tastes, shapes and memories by recognizing their universality and the powerful need for continuity and community.
Ramshah Shaheryar Bhatty
Lahore, Pakistan
shazi ka designer frock (shazia’s designer gown), Taji bhai aur unka naya camera (translation: taji brother and his new camera), akhir log hamara chehra hi tu dektay hain (translation: in the end, all people see is our face)
oil on canvas: 18cm X 24cm, 14.5 cm X 22cm, 17cm X 21cm
LOST:
I’m mentally somewhere in the 90s, not just my childhood but also generally in the 90s vibe. An era I’ve seen in photographs. I relapse to the time when I’m cycling alone down the lane without being cautious or playing badminton with neighbors older than us siblings. Times sure have changed but the essence remained. This doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the present and what we have now but I find pure bliss to relive the coziness, closeness of people and the sense of security everyone had back in purana(old) Pakistan. so I just wanted to paint the word “joy” hence I collected photographs from the 90s with which I hope to recreate the warmth we lack today. Also discovering the significance of a photograph. How fewer choices led us to capture moments in their most raw form, in contrast to plenty handy possibilities today. We’ve surely lost the essence of living privately and candidly, not being cautious of being photographed by anyone and being everywhere without consent, not being cautious of our outer appearance only.
Julie McLachlan
Australia
The Twisted Tree
Ink on Paper 21 x 29
LOST:
We live our lives as part of the human condition. Exciting in shells that walk this earth everyday. This can become weakened and lost over time, that we begin to slip away from those around us and become consumed by this ‘nature’. The technique that was used to create this artwork is commonly known as crosshatching, which was then ink washes were applied to help set the mood of the piece. A verse was created for this artwork as seen below:
‘The Twisted Tree’
The tree that tricked him into forgetting what he was doing with his time. The tree that made him drift to where he could no longer separate himself from nature. The tree that sits under the moon and oddly hummed an eerie song.
Nick Ivins
UK
Lost at Sea
2019. 58cm x 44cm each. Reclaimed leads, Devon minnows, hooks, cork, wire, rubber and steel washers, plywood and gesso, on beech wood.
LOST:
A collection of fishing leads reclaimed from the sea evoke the human as well as under sea life forms, and their placing that of wayside shrines to lives lost. Nick Ivins’s work responds to the familiar rituals in angling, historic notions of appeasement of a deity when venturing out over water, and hints at rejuvenation as well as loss at sea. These small, and humble works afford a calm reflection on the transience of lives, and the tiny part we play in the landscape around us.
Geneviève Dumas
Montreal
The Lost Plan
36×36”
LOST:
I am submitting a print from a painting I did that represents the loss of my last relationship. It’s the fatal loss, the painful loss of needed to let go of a relationship when there’s is still a lot of love and passion.
Nerissa Cargill Thompson
Manchester, UK
Glove Story: Memorial
90 x 90 x 4 cm
LOST & FOUND:
Much of my practice revolves around found objects particularly litter. During lockdown, on my government mandated health walks, I noticed a change in what I found. Fewer plastic bottles but a growing collection of disposable gloves and masks. The gloves felt particularly poignant so I started to photograph them. Being hand shapes, they suggest human presence no longer there. As my collection of photographs grew, they inspired this series of cast panels which together form Memorial. They are a combination of manipulated textiles and cement cast in domestic plastic packaging; the embossed patterns reminiscent of urban textures as the gloves were found discarded on pavements or caught in gutters and drains. Entombed in the cement, it reinforced the permanence of loss and the long-lasting effect of this pandemic. The gloves symbolise fleeting human interaction and loss. The waste of time and resources during covid-19 leading to lost lives, particularly the disregard for the protection of keyworkers.
Jan Valdes Tellez
Madrid, Spain
Adiós a las Almas
Óleo/lienzo 120x100cm
LOST:
“Adiós a las Almas”, es una alegoría al título del libro de Ernst Hemingway, donde me propongo un diálogo entre literatura e iconografía artística. La temática de la muerte es sin duda una de las grandes obsesiones del hombre de todos tiempos. Quizá por la famosa “democracia de ultratumba” donde todos los seres experimentamos la misma impotencia, dolor… equidad. Entre el desamparo y el desconcierto, en el afán de poetizar la vida y comprender lo incomprensible, hemos transfigurado lo finito en viaje, creando disímiles metáforas para acompañar al entendimiento: la barca de Caronte, el infierno, purgatorio y paraíso… Pero esta obra solo intenta aprehender el instante, el inicio del viaje, la pérdida. Me sirvo de parte de la iconografía de grandes maestro y del misterio que encierran sus piezas para intentar representar un universo propio, diáfano, con colores que nos acerque a lo etéreo,sin perder la teluricidad del suceso. La religión en el consuelo, la virgen que guarde el camino de “la partida” pero más que todo que sirva deconsuelo para los que quedan, de testimonio contra el olvido.
“Adiós a las Almas” is an allegory to the title of Ernst Hemingway’s book, where I propose a dialogue between literature and artistic iconography. The theme of death is undoubtedly one of the great obsessions of man of all time. Perhaps because of the famous “democracy from beyond the grave” where all beings experience the same helplessness, pain … equity. Between helplessness and bewilderment, in an effort to poeticize life and understand the incomprehensible, we have transfigured the finite on a journey, creating dissimilar metaphors to accompany understanding: Charon’s boat, hell, purgatory and paradise … But this work alone tries to grasp the moment, the beginning of the journey, the loss. I use part of the iconography of the great masters and the mystery that their pieces contain to try to represent a universe of their own, diaphanous, with colors that bring us closer to the ethereal, without losing the tenacity of the event. Religion in consolation, the virgin who guards the path of “departure” but more than anything that serves as consolation for those who remain, as a testimony against oblivion.
Sylvia Catharina Hess
Germany and La Palma (Canary Islands)
In the Web
Acrylic on cotton/Triptych 130 x 243 cm
FOUND:
The pandemic raised my awareness that we are part of and dependent on nature. The uncertainty came from nature – the virus – and at the same time I experienced nature as a refuge and consolation. But the escape into the apparently untouched nature cannot prevent thoughts from revolving around the social consequences of the pandemic. Since the outbreak of the pandemic we have been in a state of permanent transition: it will not be the same again, and we do not yet know how we will live afterwards.
Aia Leu
Ireland
Lost in The Waves
Oil on linen, 40 x 50cm
LOST:
This is the story of feuding, the ancient axes mark the end of conflict, thrown into the sea and lost by the shoreline, they are now revealed by the lapping waves. They symbolise the action to ‘bury the hatchet’ and that to forgive is never too late.
Carina Chang
New York, USA
At Night I Returned Home
oil on canvas
LOST & FOUND:
Born in 1993, Carina Chang is a first-generation Chinese American painter based in New York. Her parents immigrated from Hong Kong and the Dominican Republic, and she was raised between the USA and Hong Kong.
Her work examines the dysphoria around her cultural identity and self-identity. The paintings question memory to understand generational trauma. She confronts the unreliable narrator and challenges figuration in a Western world by representing her body.
Meta Roller
Stuttgart, Germany
rediscovered feelings
acrylics on used newspaper 50 x 69 cm
FOUND:
the painting tells of the power with which recovered objects from the past build a bridge between the lost yesterday and and the present.
Through the sight, an incredibly familiar touch of a once important, perhaps forgotten treasure, you can effortlessly find your way back over the years.
You can, for example, drive in your first car to your lost childhood. You can feel the fear again when you couldn’t find it in the nursery and the happiness when it was back.
The newspaper used as a painting surface is chosen to emphasise that everything exposed to time has to cope with the loss, but that a temporary finding back is possible.
Hannah Duggan
Amherst, MA, USA
Exposure, Obliterated Stock, Not Connected
Porcelain, 8.5″ x 11″ per sheet
LOST:
I am interested in the translation or mistranslation of experiences that occur when printing digital imagery on porcelain tablets, inspired to appear as faux printer paper. The digital space is a vast archive of individual and social behavior. We rely upon digital interfaces to deliver essential information as well as for social interaction, especially considering how covid-19 has forced many people to quarantine and work remotely. Though viewed as a vessel of stability, the digital interface is actually unstable. The information contained digitally is constantly shifting, updating and refreshing. Despite its fragility, clay is one of our most archival materials, having documented much of human development. Translating digital imagery onto clay allows me to physically interact with information that would normally be limited to a screen. I can etch and add onto the clay tablet transfers as a way to add subjective thought and feeling to these often dense and less accessible aspects of the digital. This materiality enables me to engage with my interest in the effect of technology on human experience.
Maria Syrakvash
Minsk, Belarus
Time of Death
200×85 cm, linocut
LOST:
This work is a representation apocalyptic visions regarding the threat that will confront mankind. The countless lives that we lost during a pandemic and the pain of losing formed the basis of this work.
Paola Franco
Lima, Peru
About gardens
21 x 29,7 cm
FOUND:
About gardens is a short story based on the quarantine period in 2020. It reflects on the effort to hold on to objects that contain our most meaningful memories. The act of remembering is a process in which we often found scattered fragments, but they also help to identify the more or less exact place where everything we ever lived lies motionless. That’s why the elusive form of writing seems the only way to connect that nostalgic energy into tangible proof.
Valerie Arntzen
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Safe at Home
27″ h x 8″d x 8″w
FOUND:
This piece is part of the series I created during Covid 19 called “Home is Home and Everything Else is Not” I was at home during this time and had plenty of time to access what was important in my surroundings. It was a time for cleansing your mind, spirit and physical place. Everyone found old or forgotten items in boxes, basements and attics that now became more important to their memories, mental well being and made their homes a happier place to spend all this time.
Aleksandra Man
London
Conversations with Ren
Acrylic Paint and Textile on Canvas
FOUND:
Our relationship faced some challenges over the last year, which we tackled and seemingly resolved, yet lockdown brought a new wave of uncertainty and confusion. We were almost sure this would be the final straw, and our relationship was about to fall apart. However, in the most melancholy, desperate times, we found a little bit of time to converse, beyond the small talk, about our anxieties, aspirations and desires. This piece features a portrait of my husband that I completed during our late-night conversations, and with every word and every stitch, we found a way to mend our relationship. This piece embodies the spark that was once lost and now found to bring us together once again.
Cydney Lewis
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Rebuild, Rebloom, Swampland
Hand cut paper with digital drawing on
LOST & FOUND:
Feeling Lost is a reoccurring place that creeps up in my life. A place where I feel so distracted and stuck. These are fallow times that occur as a reminder to rest, succumb to being quiet and calm. A reminder that my purpose and energy will be Found again in abundance.
Bettina Silverio
Metro Manila
Helping Hands
Mixed Media on plastic packagings, tarpaulin and a wooden frame, 24in x 24in x 1inch
FOUND:
Prior to the pandemic, things felt pretty hopeless in our country, and I was quickly losing any sense of community spirit and patriotism. Disappointment with the government and disgust towards civic leaders and their troll armies quickly ate away at what little love I had left. But the rise of Covid changed all this. As the lockdown ensued and the numbers of sick people rose, the public sector came together and found ways to support the medical community, the various frontliners and the poor. The love and sense of responsibility I thought was lost had been found, nurtured and even strengthened. “Helping Hands” is the embodiment of this new-found community spirit and sense of socio-civic responsibility. This artwork was made with various plastic packaging that came with online purchases made during the first few months of the lockdown. These purchases were made to support local vendors, and the purchased items, in turn, were used as donations to support frontliners in the hospitals.
Enoch
Nigeria
Evergreen Rome
3ft X 4ft
LOST & FOUND:
I have created a series titled “Thin Places”, the work ‘Evergreen Rome’ belongs in the series, I’ve created a body of work where people of colour are visiting significant monuments and existing in a world without the drama surrounding our existence. Evergreen Rome has my muse sitting on a cloud and taking a photograph of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Rome.
Asiya
Pakistan
Jasmin in Blue, Contemplation in Red, Fantasy
Oil on canvas 8×12 inches, Oil on canvas 19×24 inches, Acrylic on Canvas 14x17inches
FOUND:
My work for the past 5 years has been used for different aspects of life. I don’t set out to produce art about one subject so I am constantly drawing and sometimes the drawings are left in the sketchbook and other times they develop into more in depth ideas and detailed images.
Recently, the Women’s March inspired me to focus on the current issues of Pakistani women. Women can endure more pain, stress ,and hardships both mentally and physically. I have preferably drawn floral patterns to show how women are like flowers. Flowers were designed for beauty, so we’re women but neither will share their fragrant appeal with the world if they are not cared for properly . Women and all her hurdles, experiences, desire ,dream are my preferred subject.
Flowers grow out of dark therefore after dark times of my life I found myself to grow again , to cherish each single moment of my life. Hence my paintings become more imaginary and sentimental than nostalgic.
Chris Hynes
Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Adrift, Elevation, Icon
Found objects and clay. All three are approx 2ft L x 1 ft H x 6 inch wide
FOUND:
I work with found objects resourced from local junkyards and clay. The design focuses on the fragility of nature juxtaposed against the harshness of metal combining the organic with inorganic.
Sara K Dunn
Providence, RI, USA
Finding yourself, Lost
Pen and Ink in a 8×9.5 inch Strathmore sketchbook.
LOST & FOUND:
This piece is from a sketchbook that I worked in during a tumultuous time of my life. I was reeling from sudden and abrupt abandonment. I turned internally after the loss, trying to find something to fill this new void. I found that the person that I wanted to find in myself was too lost in sorrow and fear. I wouldn’t let myself be found by another. I could see myself trapped in this box, unable to leave. Pulled down too much. This is an auto-drawing, meaning that I don’t plan it out, I just draw with a pen from the heart, adapting to mistakes and letting my emotions take the forefront. It is a form of therapy, of witchcraft. In drawing this, and healing from it, I am now allowing myself to be found.
Lara Cory
UK
Glimpsed Ruin
Paper collage on extant printed board
I found this battered intaglio print of Francois Lemoyne’s Diana and Callisto on the side of the road. Painting over the whole image with the exception of a Diana and her posse, I create a new image of a goddess peeking into the future. The mirrored surface of the tear in the cosmos symbolises that with all of our wisdoms, technology and experience, there remains the age-old problems staring back at the mythological protector of women and wilderness. This piece has a literal interpretation of being a found item, and a symbolic interpretation of ‘lost and found’ represented as the status of women’s rights and environmental protection in constant flux throughout history.
Arzu Arslan
Turkey
Excavated Chintemani, Lost
H:16cm D:15cm, D:30cm
LOST:
I m a tradi-contemporary ceramic artist from Turkey. In this work I imagined an excavated 500 year old plate which partially lost its motifs. But although this it s still very rare and valuable. Also I want to give a message that people sometimes loses their personal traits in years, but mostly they remain same in essence. We fear showing our emotions and that makes us feel in huge loneliness
Olivia Mansfield
UK
When We Lost One
acrylic on board (27cm x 27cm)
LOST:
This piece is a really personal one. Working through the paint with primal intuition, things, images, memories, traumas, events from my life often crop up and unravel as I go. This piece is about loss. It shows three women, holding one another looking out into a screaming dark mass, an entity encroaching, ebbing, reaching out to engulf them. Fear& darkness, a glimpse through the safety of the veil to where we daren’t go, to grief, to sorrow, to mourning.
But there is hope in the luminosity of the figures and their closeness. Together, they shine through like a beacon, encouraging light and sanctuary from the licking tendrils of the despair. My influences range from classical painting, iconography, theology, culture, religion, ritual and symbolism. Often, these themes converge where time is lapsed and distorted, enabling a landscape, a place and its inhabitants to manifest and nurture a discourse which encompasses theory, fact and a dreamlike fiction.
Maisie Cu
Toronto
Sublime Objects of Material
Acrylic and Oil on Wood / 8 x 10 inches
LOST:
I found myself unable to get out of bed one morning, my house was flooded by the bathroom sink, and suddenly the pain in my chest intensified a loss. Thus, the two paintings were born, they are the depictions of long lost memories that remain under dormant waiting to be cultivated. It is the process of personal exploration into the new abyss navigating between the inner world and the material world. Everything seems dreamy in which the individual becomes an object of missing. When something is missed, it becomes an object of the personified nostalgia. However, the return to such place is not available due to the destruction of the modern world between the gap of the objects and the subjects.
Valia Paella
Moscow, Russia
LOST:
The art & Information for me – is our daily bread. We have to be more critical choosing our food as well as media consumption. I’m standing for digital humanism & ethics. As digital technologies become more sophisticated, intuitive and powerful, their growing impact on society brings the pressing issue of ethics. The new issue – is to how to manage oneself ethically via online and digital mediums. Reputational impact due to unanticipated consequences of innovations, such as when digital assistants “listen in” on conversations or face recognition or computer-generated voices sound uncannily human
Pallavi Rastogi
Compassion
Inks and photo colours/40-28,25/19 inches
LOST & FOUND:
This pandemic had made me lose the jest of life, my dear and near ones had lost someone precious, but there is something infinitely healing within the lap of nature, birds make you smile and I found my happiness .
My subject matter is Divinity and Nature. I use inks and photo colours on paper. Living with beautiful objects that pay tribute to the natural world reminds us to slowdown and helps us reconnect with nature. Birds make you smile ,you would always want to hear the beautiful chirping of the birds around you. What I lost I found as happiness in feeding the birds which nourishes your soul
Riana Arums
Bogor, Indonesia
Healing
Oil on canvas
LOST & FOUND:
This painting is about, how to heal and survive from the hurt, broken heart, mental health, bad life.
Let yourself feel pain first and you can heal yourself, and then get learned from it all. Because the process will make you more strong
Lucy Shaiken
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Through the Doorway, Windows 3
acrylic on canvas 12 x 16 inches, 8 x 10 inches
LOST & FOUND:
Lost and found again: a sense of home. During lockdown, home became both prison and sanctuary. I was afraid to leave yet itching to escape. Anxiety dominated. As the months progressed, I realized I needed to focus on the joys and comforts of home. I began to capture warmth and calm.
Valerie Arntzen
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
What is Your Address?
9″h x 6″w x 6″d
LOST:
This piece is one in my series I call “Home is Home and Everything Else is Not”. Living on the west coast of Canada I was listening like everyone to the Covid news around the world. When I heard about France shutting down and you had to have a pass to go to the doctors, store or walk your dog, it broke my heart. If you were stopped your pass had to match your address and where you were going. This simple freedom of walking out the door whenever you wanted to was now lost.
Ayshe-Mira Yashin
London, England, United Kingdom
Three of Cups, Two of Cups
fine liner on paper
FOUND:
These two submissions are tarot cards from the Sapphic Enchantress Tarot Deck, a deck made for queer women and femme people, helping us tune into our divine femininity and embrace our bodies, including parts of our bodies that are deemed imperfect in society. This tarot deck is about finding self love, and also loving our queerness. The “Two of Cups” card symbolises solidarity, partnerships and balanced relationships, especially female friendships and sapphic love. The “Three of Cups” card explores celebration, depicting a flower harvest, with the flowers symbolising female sexuality, as well as new beginnings.
Janet Temitope Adegoke
Oyo state, Nigeria
The eminent cataclysm of her incongruent manifestation
30 by 40inches
FOUND:
The pandemic was a time of deep and painful reflections for me. All the plans I made towards going for my master’s degree was destroyed. I was able to think deeply and come to a decision of taking my art career more seriously and professionally. I was so sad and kept thinking of all the setbacks of the year. Coupled with the fact that I lost my father last year, I felt everything was going the wrong way.
But in the middle of the chaos I was able to find my true self, I realised that my life was always in motion and the pandemic gave me a period of calmness for self evaluation. I found my true self during this pandemic. The chaotic year birthed a new vision and career drive for me.
The year was cataclysmic and chaotic, but it was also a year that birthed my manifestation as a purpose driven artist.