Marie Theres Madani: The Weight of Silence

“Not one person in a hundred knows how to be silent and listen, no, nor even to conceive what such a thing means. Yet, only then can you detect, beyond the fatuous clamour, the silence of which the universe is made.” 

                                                                                                                                            Samuel Beckett

 

With her large-format, abstract paintings the artist seeks direct sensual access to herself and, by extension, her recipients. The abstract appearance and expressive composition of her works force a momentum of engagement and a direct emotional reaction in the viewer.

Her first exhibition with the gallery Marie Theres Madani has devoted to the theme which plays an important role in the artist’s approach to her work and her perception of the outer world in general. It’s the theme of the permanent struggle between the external manifestations of the reality, which can be too loud, excessive and disturbing, and the voice of the inner space of the human’s mind, where we can find the vital source of life energy, personal strength, and creative flow. 

The exposition includes paintings with mixed media on canvas in large and small formats from The Weight of Silence (2023) and Between the Shadow and the Fold (2022) series.

Silence both withdraws and reveals at the same time. It covers unnecessary things and leads to perceiving oneself. For Madani this does not mean a turning away from noise and sound, but an immersion and focusing on the sounds of creation. A silence in order to listen, a basic phenomenon that manifests itself from her process, but which becomes visible in her work as sounding, rising and fading away. Madani`s work therefore emerges from a state of silence, fading into silence.

For the artist her capacity to feel isolated from the distractions coming from the outside and to observe her personal inner space growing and becoming louder and stronger is a vital and determinate basis of the art practice. In her vision painting is a space where we can be open to intuitive perception, more consecrated in the inner world, it’s the way to escape from external distractions and to find the way to ourselves. 

Marie Theres Madani enters dialogue with each new painting as a space with potential for transformation and discovery. She becomes intuitively involved in the creative process, at the same time takes an architectural approach to building the composition. 

Fragments, shapes, marks, and lines are constructed and sculptured to create an interplay of movement and contemplation; a moving mosaic of the moments experienced by the artist. Each artwork is a living emotional space as the result of an intuitive yet conscious practice that translates and visualizes the artist's sensations and thoughts. 
Madani's works convey the impression of a multidimensional reality that seems to grow on different layers in many directions.  She aims to create a dynamic feeling where the work seems to travel on. 
Paintings included in the exhibition The Weight of Silence can be experienced as a tangible space that captures, accumulates, and transmits the energetic and emotional flow of each of the moments of its creation.