2017
Mixed Media
125x125x20 cm
Circular materials are employed in this red heart-shaped work. Objects mirror their environment, but they also include the person gazing at the object as a result of reflection. The spherical metallic mirror sits in the centre. The symbols on the rings, which are placed around the centre where the light is refracted, represent the letters of the phrase "I love you" in many languages in red. On the planes where the letters are put, iconic heart figures are also employed as well. Employing these strategies in this work, the artist incorporates language into the imagery. He produces a stencilled, moulded, and sculpted alphabet, and he designed a graphic that stacks all of the letters of the phrase "I love you" in different languages side by side. The person who looks at this mirror can see oneself in it. It is an encounter in which we recognize ourselves in the person we love. Its conventional and symbolic meaning is clear to all, who poses in front of the words "I love you", a group of friends, a romantic couple, and a man with his bike. Each time a photograph is taken, the rules of use and the properties of the speech event turn the work into someone else's love — love among a group of friends, love of a romantic couple, and love of a man for his bike. Love, the artist believes, gives us our humanity as well as our mysticism. There is more to us than meets the eye. And history is brutally self-important without it. These lexical and reflective qualities of the work describe the artist’s own mythological and redemptive view of love.