Passion, is a kind of surging wave that comes up through people and comes out into the world that you have no control over. How do you represent extreme emotional states, which by their definition involve loosing control, loosing sense of self?
Bill Viola’s work uses water as the medium to talk about birth, death, and life in general. The universal themes that we all get to experience in our lives. And the language he chose to speak through is via video and moving images.
Another piece of work that was displayed in a church is called “Ocean without a shore”.
The piece is intriguingly beautiful in that, at the beginning, the person was visually presented black and white representing death. And through a thin sheet of water wall, this person walks through it and became “colourful” and alive, metaphoring the resurrection of christ. These pieces of art were displayed on the altars, where in Christianity they are places of the dead that makes connection with the living. I don’t think I described it as well as Viola in the video. This piece stunned me in that the idea, the execution of the moving images, and where the plasma screens were placed were all thoroughly thought out and in complete harmony with each other. The work feels very united and whole. It makes sense in every single level. This is the kind of work which is what I called “bringing what’s universal with a cutting edge method“. And I know deep down, I want my work to be towards this direction. I just know. It’s passion.
His other pieces “The Passing” and “Nantes Triptych” are both about birth and death, but more personal bringing videos of his mother as well. He mentioned that,
If you are going to make true art, it’s gotta be one thing. It can’t be like Mr. famous artist here and then something else over there. You can’t keep those things apart. If you want to live your life to the fullest.
#somethingtotalkabout 