Contact Information:
Sara Wortman
swortman@hamilton.edu
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Without the blessing of foreknowledge, our lives consist of exploring the many arcane pathways of life and, in particular, recursively attempting to discover our own direction. In the perplexing uncertainties of one’s existence, our trajectories often become confounded, overlapping each other, building on top of one another, altering size and amplitude, intertwining, and growing outward into the open space around them. As a result, many humans devote themselves to spiritual beings, ephemeral manifestations of a greater power. Such beings are seen to protect, guide, and control their devotees’ destinies, providing comfort to those that fear the unknown. In a similar manner, humans utilize mathematics to explain the inexplicable, predict outcomes, and rationalize chaos, finding solace in tangible numbers and equations.
Without conforming to verbal thinking or visual and mathematical norms, Ora iéié O!! endeavors to intersect linear logic with faith-based rationalization, charging seemingly objective shapes with enigmatic significance—awakening heightened states of consciousness and facilitating the discovery of human insight. Drawing inspiration from anthropomorphic depictions of Oxun, a revered goddess of the Afro-Brazilian religious sect Candomblé, this work focuses on the spiritual capacity of an aniconic embodiment. Often depicted in gold and yellow, as well as symbolically as crescent moons, sets of five, peacocks, and rivers, Oxun provides, for myself and many others, faith in the way destiny unravels, against the intense desire for a clear, predicted, linear idea of time and life’s trajectory.
Ora iéié O!! was made possible by The Steven Daniel Smallen Memorial Fund and The Academic Fund for Seniors. You have my eternal gratitude.