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Art is often most effective (or rather, affective) when presented in unexpected contexts. An Estonian theater company’s less than conventional production of Romeo and Juliet has vroomed to the forefront of Serviette’s inspirations as of late. Staged in a defunct limestone quarry, the near ubiquitous tale of star-crossed lovers is “performed” not by actors, but by trucks and excavators.
Without dialogue or live performers, Romula ja Julia reimagines Shakespeare’s illustrious tale of love and loss in all its complexity, stirring audiences with a nuanced portrayal of human emotions using only machinery; two mechanical arms gently branch out towards one another, for instance, to suggest a tender kiss. (To any screenwriters/playwrights reading this, we urge you to reevaluate the narrative potential of construction equipment. Consider Luca Guadagnino's tennis tryst Challengers retold with a cement mixer, crane, and pick-up truck.)
Just as excavators summon tenderness from steel, artist Mary Frances Pratt summons radiance from something as slight as a sheet of foil. It's as jarring as a dance of heavy equipment, but pretty as a picture. Pratt’s spellbinding oil paintings deal in an array of subject matter, but it is her still lifes of tinfoil that truly stand out. Pratt portrays this utilitarian material, one that is intended to be discarded after a single use, with a luminescence that is truly staggering.
The commonplace is transmogrified into something arrestingly beautiful before the viewer’s eyes, made more alluring not in spite of, but because of its ordinariness. The inanimate can now be perceived anew, becoming startlingly alive—just as Romula ja Julia’s machinery (or an embroidered piece of cloth) is. For those of you living in eastern Canada, may we highly suggest a visit to The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia or the National Gallery of Canada to view Pratt’s ineffable works in person.
Serviette is acutely aware of the reward that so often accompanies recontextualising the ordinary. Like Mary Pratt’s tinfoil subjects or Romula ja Julia’s construction equipment, the napkin is a quotidian object that, on the surface, may not appear to warrant much consideration. However, by repositioning it as a canvas for fragrance, and thereby a means of contextualising scent in a new way, its significance mounts.
We thank you for taking the time to read and encourage you to excavate artistic meaning in all its obscure and multifaceted manifestations. We hope this newsletter may even be one of them.