Artwork title : Rose Perpetual

Ephemeral beauty of rose alludes to indistinguishable power of art, poetry and hope. Book form stands for imperishability of culture. Together - they fuse into timeless chemistry, the alchemy of human connection.

Symbolic value of rose and book, fluidity and narrative potential of textiles, metaphoric use of gold, subvert the idea of preciousness. Most invaluable treasures are all around us, in the enduring beauty of nature, perpetuity of culture, the work of human hands and within us.

Conceptually dense and visually nuanced, each page forms an important brushstroke, treasures hidden within are aplenty. I reimagined great grandfather’s rose sketch in wax-resist technique, thus honouring familial and cultural roots, power of memory and value of identity. Own archival textiles, dyed with rose from artist’s garden – a witness to life events, connect private and universal histories through ancestral practice of natural dying. Fusing Eastern and European heritage techniques reflects my Eurasian identity, reconciling tensions of  cultural complexity  and simultaneously offering a conversation on possibilities of global connectivity through shared collective knowledge. Cloth, art and language heal, transcend times, epochs, socio-political factors, and are universally understood.

Desiring to promote sensory awareness and perpetuate the value of textile art, equal voice is given to non-human and one of the artist. Rose, the protagonist of original silkscreen printed poem, lends much more than colour to this sculpture. Gilded thorns, linking material and spiritual, give agency to the intangible. Antique bobbin with golden thread connects to craft and ancestral practice of the handmade. Hand dyed gradient colour alludes to passage of time. Book form is examined as an idea and textiles – as text. After all, humans were weaving before emergence of alphabetical systems. Cloth is an original language with infinite possibilities to communicate and connect…

The symbolical rose leaf floating above the book sculpture hides the barely legible text ‘remember’, - an extract from the same poem, referencing the power of memory, preservation of cultural heritage, importance of private and universal histories. Also, examining the role of books and libraries as keepers of truth, knowledge, linking past, present and future, not allowing to forget, but rather, - to improve.