Gratitude

Let’s imagine living our lives without gratitude. In fact, it is not such a difficult mental exercise. The positive moments of our lives pass by as if they were entirely self-evident, while we endlessly ruminate over our negative experiences. Yet these two life experiences often go hand in hand, and it is the recognition of joy—and the turn toward gratitude—that can dissolve the gloom. Through my work titled Gratitude, I seek to bring gratitude closer to the audience as an act.

The artwork is a series of 52 ceramic portraits of roosters and hens. My symbolic system is complex but not complicated, a set rooted in theoretical research and personal experience, unfolding as follows: The rooster is often seen as a symbol of rebirth and resurrection, but in various cultures, it is also associated with measuring time. A personal source of inspiration for me was a family tradition from my childhood.

Every Sunday, we would have lunch together at my grandparents' farm. On these occasions, my grandmother would always butcher a hen or a rooster and serve a meal prepared from it. Death and rebirth. The rooster perished to nourish others. Thus, my work carries this spiritual cycle within it, but it also reflects the profane sense of time. There are 52 portraits, one for each week of the year.

In my artistic practice, I strive to emphasize the unique and unrepeatable nature of fine art. For this reason, every rooster portrait is one of a kind. This resonates with the identification of the rooster as a symbol of the soul.