Alex Girshon

reality, as I perceive it, is not linear or coherent, always shifting between present moment, memories, dreams, and conscious control

“six of swords” is a step in my artistic research of fragmentation, inquiring into how visual language can showcase fractured identity, spiritual longing, experience of the sublime, confrontation with being overwhelmed, moments of psychological instability, and the contradictions and tensions that are born in the process.

Six of swords is a Tarot card that represents change, movement, a journey, transitional states. The poetry collection that accompanies the painting is titled “swords” – also as a way to represent the wounded place out of which they are born.

Solitude creates a confrontation between the self and something larger than the self - divinity, emotional intensity, overwhelming presence around, be it nature or a city. A solitary figure becomes a way of constructing the conditions under which the sublime can emerge.

I think the process of creating art for me became a process of translation – I collect fragments of my experiences, things I’ve seen and felt, dissect them and reassemble into forms that I think represent parts of how I experience reality itself. I make images that show something that otherwise would have only existed as a feeling.