FLORENCE Biennale Xii

Helena Jay’s Paintings representing Humanity and the Global Crisis for the Florence Biennale XII

I am happy to be representing the U.K at the Florence Biennale XII. Here are my two paintings for the event: “Remain-aissance Man” (left) and “One-Self” (right).

These two paintings form a pair, “Remain-aissance Man” represents what would Leonardo Da Vinici think of humanity now in 2019?

500 years have passed since his death, and I can’t help but wonder what would he think of us, and our current global situation? I think he would be amazed by all the technological inventions but incredibly saddened at how we are destroying our planet, as if we have forgotten that we are nothing without nature. Leonardo is someone who appreciated the arts, science and nature, a beautiful balance.

Faded Hands and Feet:

How much of our humanity have we lost? Here in the painting the hands and feet are faded, as I feel that today we have forgotten how to do things ourselves, we rely so much on technology. We have become a society of over-consumption that is abusing all of Earth’s raw materials, instead of fixing things and repairing them we throw them away and replace them.

Three moons And The ouroboros broken:

The three moons at the bottom represent the past present and the future, and the dark blue shape circling the man is the broken symbol of eternity, (the Ouroboros, is an eternity symbol of the snake eating its own tail), here this snake continues on the second painting where it is encircling the globe, riddled with climate change, it’s on fire. We are acting and have acted in the past as if we are eternal, as if our planet will last forever, but the way we are going it will not unless we make drastic changes.

Climate Emergency

We are causing climate change. We are responsible for this. We act as if our planet is eternal. But it is not, and this is our wake-up call.

Semiotics is something that has always intrigued me, and I like to include a lot of symbols and meanings within my paintings. I also engrave messages in to my paintings that are “visible mais pas lisible” (you can see them but you can’t read them) – the reason for this is because I want the emotion to be felt through the way I have engraved them into the canvas, I want it to be a universal feeling and not a feeling that it is restricted by a language barrier.

My technique is a unique system of layering to create unique effects that have never been seen before.

Two Suns of the Past and Present:

At the bottom of “One-Self” are two suns, they represent the past and the present, the broken snake symbol of an eternity broken has eaten the sun of the future.

Background:

The first drawing that made me fall forever in love with art was back in 2005, I replicated this Da Vinici drawing. For Florence it seemed necessary that I incorporate an homage to Leonardo in my work as he is one of the main reasons that I want to spend my life creating.