What’s the work about? Who are the protagonists? Is there a recurring motif? These are some of the questions that I frequently pull out of my sleeve when having conversations with artists. But while looking at Æmen Ededéen’s solo at MARUANI MERCIER in Brussels, I realized those would be completely out of place when talking about these wonders.
The thing is, Ededeen takes his paintings on a journey (and vice versa). Each part of it is a step into the unknown and the New Mexico based artist developed a complex process (basically a game), to make sure things stay that way. The only certainty is that there is no way he could possibly know what the work will look like in the end. The idea behind such an approach is to disregard the thinking, the familiar, the conscious, and hopefully, tap into the subconscious. By doing so he’s going back in time, when every one of us grabbed a pen and started making marks. Clueless how to use it, what we’re doing, or when we’re done, that process was mainly driven by wonder of discovery and guided by intuition. And just as he breaks apart, tears down and reprograms his paintings, the same happens to the way that we experience them.
Noticing elements that might resonate, or perhaps, the ones we dislike, each work becomes something different for each set of eyes and the mind behind them. These paintings have something to offer in every layer of the process, and the flaking, cracks, and chisel marks are all working together w (or against) the strokes and gestures, all of them together building up and tearing down the possibility of an image. And if there is a recurring element in the work, it’s the frequent use of sand grain-like glass beads. More than a texture element, the pigments around the beads create static-like distortion which adds a whole new level of fuzziness. And then there are the see-through weaves of burlap, the patched up canvases, the bones pile or wax eyes frames, the ways that smaller scale works are grouped. All of it turns our minds into a pingpong ball skittering between recognition and wonder in a cosmic game of chance. —Saša Bogojev
