SABINA SALLIS
Archipelagos Video Still 2010
Untitled Video still 2010
The Resilience of Nature Drawing on paper 2010
ARTIST STATEMENT
Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.
Essay: “A New Refutation of Time,” Jorge Luis Borges
I am interested in poetic manifestations of reality and fantasy as true objects of contemplation.
My practice involves creating work that tackles universal themes with a focus on an investigation into mutual relationships between all living species and the human condition; that nothing lives in isolation, everything is interconnected. I hold a belief in the beauty of an environment in equilibrium. Balance is precarious and stable; like a bubble popping, environments and species can be lost and yet nature is resilient and metamorphic.
My work encompasses notions of environmentalism, tensions between Utopian and non-Utopian visions of the world, and mythological symbolism.
I resource ideas from a synergy of cosmology and ecology. Through my work I strive to outline the common structures and similarities between mythological symbolism and scientific explanations of natural phenomenon.
I explore the nature-culture dichotomy and experiment with the relationship between mythical imagery and scientific imagery.
Although my work always begins from drawing, as it is through drawing that the trans-formative power of the imagination brings to forth new ideas, I work within a multi-media context, particularly video, objects and performance.
Sabina Sallis 2010