overview

two solitudes is an exhibition of the isolated bodies of work, Processes of (un)becoming by nicole and four series of photographs by nicolas: love, solitude, intimacy, followed by death’s dance, schwarzwasserstein, and rockscape. The artists have juxtaposed these collections together due to the synchronicity of the underlying metaphor: solitude.

nicole salnikovProcesses of (un)becoming

This body of work questions our behavioral patterns, habits, and rituals as an inquiry into one’s state of solitude. Consisting of 8 large format conté drawings, a hand-stitched artist book, and 4 silver gelatin photographs (not displayed at im Schaufenster), this work is a reflection on what it means to become, and at once unbecome – someone, something, or a part of ourselves.

The conté drawings explore gestural notations and mark-making through intuitive acts of repetition. The large format requires a physical, full-body commitment to drawing that simulates habitual behavior we often surrender to. This series of 8 gestural drawings questions the progressions and regressions of one’s behavior that develops over time as a means to better understand one’s state of mind and solitude.

The subsequent piece, an artist book, is composed of layers that vary from transparent to opaque, woven together with excerpts of text from Paul Auster’s The Invention of Solitude. Through its solely stitched construction, this work offers a meditation on one’s experience of solitude through elements of time, consciousness, and memory. The book portrays an aspect of past, present, and future in its traces of gestural marks, deliberate compositions, and careful yet inherently violent acts of stitching. It questions and contemplates the effects of behavioral patterns over time, reflecting on a current state of solitude. Through its time-based nature, the book is a fermentation on the idea of being vulnerable yet resilient in becoming and unbecoming.

References
The Invention of Solitude, Paul Auster, 1982
The Emotional Power of Space, Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine, 2023
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, 1987
Daybook: The Journal of an Artist, Anne Truitt, 1982

nicolas coia

love, solitude, intimacy

love, solitude, intimacy is an exploration of diptychs becoming a polyptych through the compositional juxtaposition of both overt and covert perspectives. Although displayed here in a static space – there are three predefined arrangements; the aforementioned compositions conclude a semantic level–0 triptych.

death’s dance

death’s dance was photographed while silently meditating on Silvia Plath’s poem Death & Co.

schwarzwasserstein

An exposition of a moment.

rockscape

Quite simply, a stone obsession.