The death of Dingo
2022
Drawing with textile threads and beads, 65 x 142 cm
Location: Garrison Command
Often the art I create allows me to express what I cannot otherwise, guiding me towards introspection or a healing process. I drew The death of Dingo as a gesture of sublimation of the emotional baggage I carried after his unexpected demise. I also chose thread drawing because it is a laborious technique. The threads that run from one side of the fabric to the other make a back-and-forth path and fix the points of the beads. This slow process of creation made me aware of the place mourning the family dog had among a succession of my other losses of loved ones.
Mushrooms take on the role of a psychopomp, who guides souls to the place of the dead, which escorts Dingo, in the same way he was a companion for other family members. The mycelia red as stray blood can create mycorrhizae which combine with the dog’s body, ready to transform. Perhaps Dingo has transfigured into bright, colourful atoms. A drawing helped me mourn.
I go to the end of the world
2022-2023
Drawing on recycled silk, with textile threads, beads, sequins, 65 x 142 cm
Location: Garrison Command
My drawing is a playful and optimistic interrogation of existence: even one’s skeleton, which remains to some extent intact after our death, can have corpuscles which retain the will to fulfil a dream. Through this work I am continuing the feminine attitude (feminitude) that I have practiced in my art and personal mythologies. The support of the drawing is made from the natural, recycled silk of a dress bought in a second-hand shop. The skeleton is precious and glamorous, structured using classical embroidery, but also a free drawing with sequins, beads and shiny threads. Its size in relation to the dress refers to tales of dwarfs and giants. We can change size and shape, and seemingly disappear, but it is possible for something discreet but very meaningful to remain and create existential fulfilment. When a woman converts her skills
in crafts into art, the rebound of this gesture can rehabilitate her human status.
Drawing from the Mushroom series
2020
Drawing with textile threads, 142 x 65 cm
Location: Garrison Command
I have my own mythologies; the mushroom is part of them and is one of my allies. Because its family is immense, I have had less pleasant or extraordinary stories concerning mushrooms, but I always felt they were a guide. One of my first ideas about existence was the presence of a mushroom under whose cap I can always find a safe space. Later I learned that other children had the same feeling and that giant fossilised mushrooms had been discovered. I like to think it’s true what the mushroom spirit told the American ethnobotanist Terence McKenna: that it had travelled through the cosmos to Earth to guide us.
I admire the ability of many fungi to make alliances with plants or animals for the benefit of all species.
Drawings from Tom Bombadil’s Sisters series
2021
Textile yarn drawings, 142 x 80 cm
Location: Garrison Command
The wild woman hidden inside us told us, even if her voice sometimes could not be heard with our ears, that life is impossible without communion. I created these images as a necessity to imagine the relationship – which I call mycogine – between Mushroom and Woman in its most concrete manifestation: the body. What would a woman do to look like her friend, to have a corolla, to translate the stalk and the cap into her own body language (known as leg and hat in Romanian)? She lifts up her skirt, and creates a canopy with the fabric. This is how a gesture full of the irony of the miraculous takes place: beyond the formal similarity between the two images, she reveals her power. The womb is shown – and this is a gesture of the utmost courage. Women in mycogine have the ability to live like JRR Tolkien’s character Tom Bombadil, who is comfortable in any world, unseen or real. They live a certain way because this is their choice. For them, ‘must’ does not exist as a word, and they caution us not to get caught in the trap of appearances.
Bio
Ana Adam lives and works in Timișoara, Romania. Among her most recent exhibitions are: “Haptic Ecstasy”, Atelier 35, Bucharest (2019, solo); “Mother Tongue”, Sector 1 Gallery, Bucharest (2019); “The Unpleasant Show”, Jecza Gallery, Timișoara (2019); “Life – Mode of use”, Art Encounters Biennale, Timișoara and Arad (2017); “Stylistic matrix woodcut X”, Galeria Calpe, Timișoara (2016); “Retracings”, Monostori Erod, Komarom / Budapest Gallery / Museum of the Country of Crișurilor, Oradea (2014); “Stylistic matrix woodcut IV”, Galeria Transformadora, Durango (2010); “Fibres, pigments”, French Cultural Center, Timișoara (2010, solo); “Art on the knees”, Galleria 28, Timișoara (2007, solo); “Memorial Tapestry”, travelling exhibition: USA / Italy / Poland (2003); “Drawings again?”, Banat Museum, Art section, Timișoara (2002, solo); “Invitation”, Kunsthaus, Essen (2001); Drawing exhibition, Sindan Cultural Center, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2000, solo). She took part in several international engraving biennials and triennials in Timișoara (2003), Miskolc (1997), Rio de Janeiro (1998), Krakow (1997, 1994) and Nuremberg (1994).
