Mari-Liis Sõrg – TASE’22

AFTERLIFE

2022

I imagined a sunlit room, a blank sheet open to opportunities.

This future, one in which loss and suffering have passed, was not to be: reality was darkened

by the upheaval of exploding light, dizzily forcing it to the ground.

The beginning is not a blank plane, but an underpainted surface upon which something is to

come. A painting with a contaminated, yet receptive surface, that seamlessly blends the strata

of different ages. A freshly whitewashed area is not perfect, as if of palimpsest. The covered

bumps are visible; the ruins of a self image and basic beliefs, laments and pieced together

pictures. New opportunities and relationships await to be applied and that which haunts

requires understanding.

The aftermath of a traumatic event is the beginning of the path to overcoming, a journey with the

goal towards progress and a better place. The painting’s installation centers on a time in which

a new birth is possible. Each scratch on the surface is possibly a memory of something I once

saw but did not notice; a trigger to memories and fears but also the possibility for dreams.