Notes on Kerstin

1.
Black should be perceived as in primitive (peaceful and matriarchal) societies: it represents fertility, and it is also the color of damp caves, fertile soil, the uterus of the Goddess where life begins.

2.
“I swam with giant turtles, I walked on glass (lava) with my sunshields (glass)”.1

3.
Exotic and isolated places, populated by flora and fauna now extinct. The atmosphere is vibrant: a volcano vents smoke, and all around there is only the ocean.

4.
The paintings are like psychograms, warm and richly imaginative signs in which neither objects nor symbols are recognizable or seem to be represented: they are outbursts, violent discharges of energy that express sensations like hot or cold, light or shadow, love or hate, life or death.

5.
They live in the water and from the union of ancient minerals. They are not yet either demons or gods. They come before Man, fantasy, history, myth, religion.

6.
She has buried, and has buried herself. The taboo of death has never ceased to stimulate human thought, and funeral rites can be cathartic expressions symbolizing rebirth.

7.
The act has its motivations. The sign is the effect, but the work remains unfinished.

8.
Spirits are snared between the lines of lead of antique windows, as in the net of a dreamcatcher.

9.
Alchemy by greek khymeia (χυμεία), means melting, dripping, welding, inclose.

10.
She does not look to the sky to find God. She descends into the bowels of the earth to unite with the Goddess.

11.
Poli’ahu is crying, votive tears stones.

Mattia Ruffolo

Link: Kerstin Brätsch at Gio Marconi