AUN // The Gate
Anna Gabriele
2019
Artist Statement
What hides between the visible? AUN // The Gate is a pair of paintings created throughout one winter spent in the secluded charcoal maker's mountain village of Nobushina, Nagano Prefecture. Implemented under the open sky and close by a fire pit, this work experiments with various techniques of combustion and casting fire into layers of pigment and liquid metal. Infinite blacks and sparks of light are composed into an artwork which captures the dynamics of transience by continuously looping the creative process, burning its traces into a monument of genesis. The original Sanskrit term A-un is composed of the first and the last letter of its alphabet which together symbolically represent the beginning and end of all things. In Japanese Mikkyo-Buddhism the letters represent the beginning and end of the universe. A-un also describes the paired statues guarding many temples and shrines in Japanese Shinto and Buddhist architecture.
re-wind 虚空 The missing element. The sky in Japan is unique to any other I know. It drones in a million shades of light. Long before my first visit, Tokyo inspired within me glowing visions of infinite blue skies and vast, incomprehensible expanse. I wondered what secrets might be unveiled within it's enigmatic nothingness. In Japanese culture I perceived a deep understanding for the reciprocity of form and emptiness and the destructive, purifying, and creative properties of change. Living in Japan taught me to understand emptiness and transience as the essential element to shape our material and empirical world.
Artist Bio
Incarnation of the intangible is the essential casualty in the work of Anna Gabriele. Fire, explosions, the universe, darkness and light - her experimental paintings, mixed-media installations and musical compositions render invisible matter into physical presence. Originated in a free-spirited childhood in the forests and mountains of Austria, her artistic evolvement was further inspired by post-Mono-Ha movement and close interaction with Japanese culture and art throughout her years of study and residency in Tokyo. Latest projects include FutureArtistsTokyo/TokyoArtFair2019 and the solo exhibition 宇宙祭/SpaceFestival at Tagishina Shrine in Nagano. Anna Gabriele currently works in Austria, Japan and Taiwan.