Musonium Gallery is honored to present ENANTIODROMIA, the debut solo exhibition by Catharses. Enantiodromia is the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time and the artworks in this exhibition reflect a personal journey of the individuation process and shadow integration. Over the course of four years exploring introspection, automatism, projective hypothesis and active imagination, Catharses navigated the darkest regions of their psyche. Black scenes, slowly built up with lighter layers, rise to the surface as the evolution of images attempt to capture the mesh of ever changing reflections of the mind. This natural process of draining emotions to bring structure and meaning to them allows an escape for the melancholia that plagues life. Catharses' first body of work documents the death of a past and a birth into the future through subliminal images of avant-garde surrealism.
With a multitude of hidden layers, Catharses was able to supersede the evolution of their artworks with the flick of a brush creating new strokes of details, marks, and splatters. The pieces that make upENANTIODROMIAundoubtedly all exude an ominous presence along with mesmeric energies begging to be discovered. The artist, while simply following the guide of their own subconscious, was able to reinvent how dark art, surrealism, and abstraction are capable of being woven together to create something new that is neither fully representational nor completely abstract. Upon first glance, the artworks could almost be mistaken as being abstract due to their ambiguous appearance, but as soon as the artworks pull you in, details of skulls, birds, winged serpents, amphibians, and other creatures begin to surface through the obscurity. It is through this genius reflective harmony Catharses possesses, the pieces in this exhibition are so easily recognizable as being created between varying states of consciousness and unconsciousness.
Catharses, through extensive experimentation, developed techniques similar to how expressionists are able to approach the creation of art with emotionally charged atmospheres. The artist used loose brushstrokes of paint on a blank surface to create a distorted reality of their subconscious mind which was then further enhanced when the artist began to see images emerge in the paint. These images were not manipulated to come into existence however, but rather highlighted to become visible. Given the name "Catharses", which the artist has chosen to be represented by, it is evident these artworks are charged with pure emotion that urges the viewer to feel what the artist feels and to see what the artist sees. The artworks inENANTIODROMIAare most definitely realizations of the strong feelings and emotions brought on by the artist's personal experiences in life. Ultimately, this lead to the intention and motivation for Catharses' creations, which brings us to the most significant reason this artwork now exists, they are self portraiture of the artist's demons.
Mystically entrancing and undoubtedly ambitious in glorious monochrome, Catharses' pieces in ENANTIODROMIAwhirl together in overlapping secrets and continuous tales of suppressed emotions. In the artist's piece titled Catharses 33, a powerful scene depicts a maelstrom engulfing creatures, branches, glass, and doomed souls, with a hovering triangle symbolizing manifestations and revelations. Much like the essence and core themes of the exhibit, the painting,Catharses 25, perfectly encapsulates the idea of bringing light to emotions and burning away the built up negative energy in a ritual of release. In pieces like Catharses 8,Catharses 21, andCatharses 26, the swirling brushstrokes create moments of movement, propelling the ideal that the energies these paintings exude live in an alternate reality where emotions manifest into an unconscious form. As the title suggests, ENANTIODROMIA addresses the state of the unconscious mind where suppression transforms into freedom and the darkness finds equilibrium with the light.
