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| Emblem |
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An emblem, in the strict sense of the word, is a figure that represents someone in an unequivocal, unchanging manner and, by extension, represents that person's calling or trade, among other things. As a general rule, looking at an emblem immediately triggers the representation of the phenomenon or person of which it is emblematic. |
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An emblem, in the terribly strict sense of the term, is any object represented in a painting by Jens Ferm. There are, among other emblems: underpants, houses, vipers, various species of flowers and animals (quite a few fish, but fewer and fewer crocodiles), clouds (I don't know what the most common formation is called), the sea (in the South, facing into the light, or just the sea), faces, sometimes hands, rain, (often at an oblique angle, blown by the wind), one or two cars, a lot of pathways, roads, tracks, trails, and peregrinations, as well as configurations of lines I have a hard time identifying. |
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Unlike emblems in the strict sense of the word, the emblems in the terribly strict sense do not automatically trigger the representation of what they are emblematic of. In terms of their meaning they are like orphaned emblems. Or rather, it is as if both the emblem and what it represents are manifest in them at the same time. The emblem in the terribly strict sense is the emblem of its own possibility. By extension, it is able to become the emblem of my emotion. |
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Time (how to construct it) |
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We can count the years and construct a span of time visually. Five years are five lines carved into a wall. We put down the dates: X to Y. The dates define a length of time; the lines act as markers for the years. But each year has its content and its loss, and the lines do not convey this loss, only the passing of time, step by step. All the lines convey is this: what counts is the empty space between them; the span of time is in the interstices that separate them. Here, however, is someone who traces the passing of time with flowers (one for every year). Each flower has its loss, as each line has its hesitancy, its density. With flowers he gives shape to the passage of time; it blooms five times simultaneously.
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| Face |
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The faces are obliterated. It is only the outer contour that makes the face recognizable as such; the features have become part of the background. The face's expression, its smile perhaps, the sharp or gentle curve that delineates the corners of the mouth, the twinkle or dullness in the (small) eyes, the handful of characteristic expressions time tears off the muscles and leaves graven on the skin: all this has been worn away; the background absorbs and renders it. The face utterly permeates the background, its absence emphasized by the lone contour line.
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| Quality (of pain) (of a colour) |
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Why are things as different as a colour (visible) and pain (invisible) both referred to in terms of their "quality"? Leaving aside the most obvious explanations, what visible and invisible qualities have in common is the same way of presenting themselves to us. Every quality has a degree of presence, intensity, density, and the power of the impression it makes on us varies infinitely. Thus pain -be it physical or psychological- is indeed a quality. |
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Pain comes to us through so many different tributaries and is manifest in so many different forms. Pain may be deep or superficial, like a physical wound. It may be vague and fuzzy like the memory a stranger has left back in us, though we can't remember where it comes from or why. It may be sharp and contained and able to localize precisely in a place that isn't really the heart, though we often call it that. Like colour, pain has degrees of saturation: it spreads inside us with a certain amount of luminosity; it is sometimes glaring, often blinding, and when the time comes it can also be black. |
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One can imagine the outer and inner eyes detecting varying degrees of presence, saturation, and intensity, and that certain qualitative affinities form between them as well as interconnecting hidden passages that allow one set of eyes to see what the other is feeling. A visual experience of a purely objective quality -this orange background for example, this horizontal configuration of circles, or this rectilinear flow of watery blue- can be perceived by the inner eye and immediately endowed with an emotional value. This is why I see this figure or this colour as a direct expression of a feeling. Not by its symbol, i.e. its visual representation, but by its emblem. So it wouldn't be absurd to say that this is a scarlet red pain, this is an orange abandoning, this is a five flower absence, or this grief is a grey erasure. |
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I do not know if I am right, but a few rare objects lead me to believe so: these paintings, for example.
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Love ( or Detail, it's the same thing ) |
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One falls in love with a detail, and only with a detail. Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise. From afar people seem very much alike, but from up close, never. A hand, a particular curve somewhere on the body, a glimmer in the hair, a very precise, unutterable gesture, the way the tongue always trips over a certain letter… these details are emblems. It is possible to see in a painter's gesture this love for detail of someone in love. For example, in Jens Ferm's paintings, the background is handled with a boundless love for detail. The painter in love. |
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| Music (background noise) |
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Fafafafafafafafafa (cigarettes and coffee). |
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Peer F. Bundgaard |
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