Fragments on Love
My collage reflects a blossoming to the idea of love as I grapple with the idealistic and practical notions that it entails. The images are superimposed on a map of the world to represent the metaphysical quality of love and the idea that love transcends nations and physical boundaries. This romantic, hopeful interpretation is balanced by the practical realization that space and distance are in fact physical restraints to love in a real world. (Immigration, wars, national borders end marriages and relationships.) Similarly, the persistent images of clocks, interpreted idealistically, express the timelessness and boundlessness of love. I have wondered how love endures through time as life runs its course. Does it persist as beauty fades and does it live on unchanged after a lover’s death? More practically, the symbol of time in my collage represents my musings on the importance of timing in love. If one love ends and another begins, does the first fade with the passage of time? Can there exist a latent form of love as we begin to love another person? Ultimately, this montage is an expression of my puzzlement and a collection of questions. It is not a complete awakening but a ripening of realizations. The couple on the lower left represents a physical manifestation of love, one of the only concrete forms of love I know to exist. The faceless torso of a woman with black polished nails and a hand pressed against her chest is a reflection of me, and perhaps other girls who have played along with petty drama in the pretense of true love. The faceless male figure is an imagined lover, classy, sophisticated in a black suit, intelligent and with a book in hand. In the lower right a broken CD, chosen for its reflecting surface, symbolizes my introspection and invites reflection from viewers on the question of love. In my grappling with love, the white dove represents my belief that love in its truest form is purely good and a supreme state of peace. Lastly, the satin brown ribbon is a finishing touch, a final but incomplete conclusion that whatever love is, it is precious, something worth our yearning.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I like your take on love. I too agree that love can transcend all national boundaries, and that up to a certain extent, it is timeless. At the same time I believe that we never will be able to understand love completely, as it is one of those things that can keep puzzling a person time and time again. I must agree that one can never fully awaken to understand love, but rather, have a “ripening of realizations,” as you call it. Very nice collage.