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Droplet looks carefully into the black. Waiting for the inevitable flashes of Blue and Yellow and Green that would light up the night like firework. Shadows surrounds it. Droplet reaches out its arms into emptiness. Not knowing what its hands could meet.
Minutes pass by. The darkness remains calm but Droplet feels its smile slowly disappearing from its face. «What are you trying to prove?» Droplet asks itself. «That deep down, everyone’s has a Dream. Just like me?»
Unexpectedly we are absorbed into the Paradise of Colors.
The darkness encourages us. Forces us in a way, to focus. Than we can see a little droplet coming closer and closer. Often we have to close our eyes to see more. When we close our eyes we can see the Universe. Or a Droplet, As just one star more in the endless Universe.
A Droplet. A Droplet as a loupe. So much to see in a Droplet. In every Droplet is life. There is a lot of Energy. And what I want to see is Colour. Colors dripping slowly into a space following movements of sounds. Like a little Droplet is taking forms with the movements. without gravity, floating into the Universe. Into the cosmos without a direction. Without any desire. It has no perception. No concept. No need to tell us what we should be thinking. It simply does not know yet it will be full of life.
Life starts for Droplet. Alive in the Paradise of Colours. A Paradise of Colours as a big dispersion of light. Variations of Forms. Suggestive textures. Fasinating and Hallucinating Melodies. So much emotion and sensation that Droplet feels full of it. Droplet gradually goes down and relaxes at a fragile Leaf. The intensity of the green color mingles with its skin. The two beings fuse.
Droplet bows its head and feels a strong desire to explore more, to caress the texture of the leaf. Even to go further. To discover more of itself… Droplet wants to go into the leaf. An unstoppable need to go deep into itself. With its free hand Droplet grabbed a loose piece of the leaf and twists it back. Pain goes through Droplet’s shoulder as it feels something tear. It presses together its lips as it cried out, to dampen the sound behind its lips.
Droplet is shocked that itself has been tearing the fragile leaf. It feels so sad that it starts to cry. And thick tears start dropping into the space of emptiness. A Space without gravitation. And falling and falling on a little branch.
Droplet abruptly feels unstable, pulling the branches towards it. Droplet leans forward, and backwards. Trying to find its balance again. But it has no balance. «Hold me. Grab me and hold me. In an attempt to save itself.»
It tries. But there is nothing to hold on. The surface is slippery and hard. There is no softness. It is hurting itself. The branch breaks and Droplet falls down…
A spark of anger flickered through Droplet as it watched the leafs and branches rapidly passing by. «You can’t rely on anyone these days,» I can’t even rely on myself”, Droplet screams of irritation. Its hand tightly closes around a piece of a flower. Trying to grab anything while it is falling.
Droplet turns around and around. Deep into the black again that had remained just that.
A surprisingly soft landing follows.
Darkness transforms his face in a mixture of pain and triumph. It’s a funny world we live in,» «It was beautiful,» it remarked. «Panic and pleasure mixed so completely you couldn’t begin to tell one from the other. They were the same.» Droplet says with a forced smile, while it manages to arrive safely on the ground.
Smelling the humidity. In red or red-brown. It is safe. It feels well. Rolling itself into the colours of the ground. Feelings of Passion and Desire. Attracted by waves of sounds. Droplet feels an enormous Curiosity to dive into this waves. To make a way into the Unknow and to disappear for some instants.
To go into the Darkness. Droplet burst out laughing as it examines its new Space… There it finds the Dispersion of Light. A magnificent rainbow of Colours.
The Rainbow invites Droplet to paint its Dream…
Francesca Marti
***
In the recent work of Francesca Martí, themagical figure of Droplet exists as a care-free elf, a spritely symbol of liberty and passion. He is personified in Martí’s photographs and videos by Matthew Mitcham, the Australian Olympic gold medal diver who won the 10-metre platformevent in Beijing in 2008 with the highest-scoring single dive in Olympic history. Works from Martí’s on going Droplet series have already been shown in Italy and Australia, but they are being exhibited in Spain for the first time at Gerhardt Braun Gallery in Palma de Mallorca, together with her installation entitled Painting a Dream at the new space of Gerhardt Braun Projects. As part of Nit de l’Art (Art Night, September 19), this solo show ispresentedby Rome-basedcurator Jonathan Turner.
Droplet appears in Francesca Martí’s works in a broad variety of techniques – photographs, digital prints, video projections on photographs, collages, paintings on canvas and large-scale video installations of the figure of Matthew Mitcham using his hands to spread swirls of paint over his surroundings. The Painting a Dream video shows Mitcham from above, projected onto a large, white box in the courtyard of Gerhardt Braun Projects, a new cultural enterprise in a newly restored palace in Palma de Mallorca. It seems as if the athlete’s body is emerging from the ground. At the same time, there is a provocative element to the beauty inherent in Martí’s work. The human figure is seen to be altering his environment. The Droplet and Painting a Dream videos are accompanied by a soundtracke specially composed by Norman van Geerke, a musician from Suriname, now based in Palma and Ireland.
Francesca Martí’s solo show at Gerhardt Braun Galleryis a contemporary fairy-tale in which the viewer’s eye is both tricked and mesmerized. The computer-manipulated photographs show Matthew Mitcham in miniature, an athlete posed in a natural setting of giant flowers, twigs and leaves. Along side these still-photographs, other images show the same scene, but this time withoutthe human figure. Instead, the perfectly synchronized figure of Droplet appears and disappears in a video, wandering across the paper as a luminous projection. He emerges from the dark forest like a mystical creature surveying his territory. Two larger projections of this moving figure are framed by door-like structures, resembling portals in to another world. In this way, Martí opens up her imagination, and shows us her visions of paradise.
Jonathan Turner
Droplet aparece en el trabajo de Francesca Martí mediante una amplia variedad de técnicas: fotografía, impresiones digitales, video proyecciones sobre fotografía, collages, pinturas sobre tela, y video instalaciones a gran escala que reproducen la figura de Matthew Mitcham usando sus manos para esparcir chorros de pintura a su alrededor. El vídeo de Mitcham será proyectado en una caja blanca de gran tamaño en el patio del edificio que acogerá Gerhardt Braun Projects, una nuevo espacio cultural en un casal restaurado en Palma de Mallorca. En esta vídeo instalación parece que el cuerpo del atletaemerge de la tierra. Aun cuando la belleza es inherente al trabajo de Martí, existe al mismo tiempo, un elemento provocativo. La figura humana se manifiesta como un elemento alterador del ambiente que le rodea. Sus movimientos rítmicosson una metáfora del modo en el que nosotros intentamos cambiar el mundo a nuestro gusto, o de como nos camuflarnos para conseguir encajar mejor en él. La pintura Droplety los vídeos de Paintinga Dream están acompañados por una banda sonora especialmente compuesta por Norman van Geerke, un músico de Suriname, que vive entre Palma e Irlanda
La exposición de Francesca Martí en la Gerhardt Braun Gallery es una fábula contemporánea, en la que el ojo del espectador es engañado y fascinado al mismo tiempo. Las fotografías manipuladas con el ordenador, enseñan a Matthew Mitcham en miniatura, un atleta colocado en un decorado natural de flores gigantes, ramitas y hojas. Junto con estas fotografías, otras imágenes muestran la misma escena , pero esta vez la sin la figura humana. La figura de Droplet, perfectamente sincronizada, aparece y desaparece video proyectada, deambulando sobre el papel como una proyección luminosa. Emerge de la oscura selva como una criatura mística vigilando su territorio. Dos proyecciones de esta figura, esta vez más grandes, están enmarcadas en estructuras a modo de grandes portales a través de los que adentrarnos en otros mundos. De esta manera, Martí abre su imaginación y nos enseña su visión del paraíso.
Jonathan Turner