Seneca Wall is up!
If you see it, tell me!
🙂
Author: Luciana Mariano
Seneca Wall
These are the pictures I made while painting my part of the Seneca Wall Project.
It took me one whole month to finish the work and it was great fun to do!
Some say it’s the largest collective art work mural in Europe (175 meters long).
Today, (july, 18th) is the final unveilling of the wall.
If you are taking a ride towards Wembley Arena, by Metropolitan or Jubilee tube lines, you may pay attention to this mural, on your left side… Just before arriving at the Wembley Park or Wembley Central Station.
I am already in Brazil, so, if you can, tell me about your impressions of it.
It will be great to hear what your thoughts about my work and the mural are!
Enjoy it!
Projeto Seneca
Mural em Wembley – Inglaterra
Zero
O Louco
Vivemos confinados no viver. Compramos carros rápidos mas agonizamos no trânsito caótico das cidades. Temos pressa mas não sabemos direito para onde ir. Ouvimos falando e fazemos pensando. Amamos mas desconhecemos nosso espelho.
O bobo busca, e mantém um olhar inocente sobre o percurso. Desconhece os riscos, flerta com a sorte. Seu acaso o leva para terras distantes, desconhecidas e ele brinca com as possibilidades.
Vivemos fadados a morrer. E morremos, consentidamete, enquanto vivemos.
Mas sejamos jovens enquanto durar o nosso olhar. Sejamos livres enquanto existir a leveza, a beleza, a música. Dançamos, mas não sentimos o movimento. Devoramos o nada, engolimos o vazio e ainda assim nos lambuzamos, engasgamos na fartura do que não existe.
O bobo se enfeita, mas leva consigo somente o necessário. Apesar da longa jornada, há de carregar mais do que seus escassos e materiais pertences. Ele carrega a si mesmo, seus medos, o peso dos seus pensamentos. O cachorro, o alerta para a dor, mas não tem a intenção gratuita de ferir. Ele quer que o bobo se entregue e entenda o agora, preste atenção no tão-somente-este-instante, que tudo é. O passado é abismo, o futuro é ilusão e a viagem, esta obrigatória aventura, é uma fantasia, adereço colorido que brinca com o pó e com o vento. Acumula, envelhece, rasga, sem nada levar ou deixar.
The Fool
We live trapped in living. We buy fast cars and then agonize on chaotic traffic. We are always on a hurry and yet, we don’t know where to go. We speak while listening and we think while doing. We love, but we do not know our own mirrors.
The fool searches, and keeps a naive look at this path. He doesn’t know the risks, and flirts with his fate. Chance brings him to unknown, far away lands and he plays with the possibilities.
We lie, doomed to die. And we die, consentedly, while living.
But let’s keep ourselves young, as long as our curiosiity lasts. Let’s be free, as long as there s lightness, beauty and music. We dance, but we don’t feel the movement. E devour the nothingness, we swallow the emptiness and even so, we besmirch, we choke on the excess of what does not even exist.
The fool dresses up, but brings along only the absolutely necessary. On his long journey, he will carry much more than his few material belongings. He will carry himself, his fears, the heavy weight of his thoughts. The dog calls his attention towards the pain, it doesn’t intend to deliberately cause it or hurt him. It wants the fool to give himself in and fully understand the now, pay attention to the only-so-right-now that is all that there is. Past is an abyss, future is an illusion and the trip, this obligatory adventure, is only a fantasy, a colorful costume that plays with dust and wind. It accumulates, it ages, it gets ripped out and yet, it doesn’t bring or leave any traces behind.
Just a thought
We know where our pains are. Which movements hurt most, how long time we can hold on, stand up, stand out or stand for. Only we know where and when, how and why. Only we know when it should end because we are the cause and effect of it. We carefully grow and harvest our pains.
Action of time
It’s funny to see how somethings inside of us change, and others stay apparently still.
Following the idea that even our cells are constantly being replaced for new ones, our ideas, tastes and hopes also go changing and being replaced, every single day.
Some of our feelings, deep inside, are also exposed to the action of time and even though we don’t clearly notice it, when they wake up, they surprise us with old tastes, but completely new sensations about it.
The other day, after all the travelling around the world I have done for the past 20 years or so, I caught myself sitting on a bus station, waiting for a bus to visit a dear friend of mine, from my very teenage years. I have had a car, all through my adult life, so the whole experience felt very new, funny, exciting for me.
Suddenly, awaiting for the bus, I had it all there, right in front of me.
I could taste, see and feel exactly how it was, 26 years ago, at that same spot.
I was a girl that felt in cloistered in a city that didn’t have anything to offer or challenge me, a dreammer and a quite smart girl surrounded by very ignorant people who’s aim in life was to get married and grow old. To me, while that city ment death for me, that place ( a bus station) ment the vortex to life itself. I remembered getting any possible excuses to grab the first bus out of there and stay away as long as I could. I did that many times and dreamed of the day I could really drive out of there and never, never look back. So I did.
And because of that I was happy enough to do amazing things in life, to travel, to see and live stuff so beautiful that no explanations are possible and no other soul would be able to relate to the kind of magic life can be and offer, if not having such desperate, hungry soul and eyes like mine.
I felt very compassionate with the girl I was. I understood how much she suffered back then and how unappropriated she felt in that poor, weird, hostile environment. I honour my effort to get me out of there. And I am really happy I ever did.
In the other hand, destiny brought me back… It was like life wanted to show me that not everything, out of a hell-ish experience, was lost. At that point I understood that some treasures in life grow in the darkest times and places and makes us better people because we endured it.
I realized that the friend I was going now to visit was one of the few greatest gifts I got for free from life. I thought: “She is worth it” and so she is.
I understood that maybe that dark moment of my existance was so that I could meet and keep a friend like her for life. I understood that she saved my life back then, by only being my friend, and while I felt so disconected to that world, she brought me back to the very delicate sense of being happy no matter where or how.
Vania, I have a few things I didn’t say back then that i can say now:
You saved me.
You made it worth.
You transcend friendship, time and space.
I love you.
Thank you.
And now I am sure: all adversities bare beautiful, magical, hidden gifts in it.
For me, you were it!
And I am happy to be back for you!
Festival Naif de Katowice, Polônia
I am participating with 7 paintings!
Silent Noise
I am trying to keep a quiet heart while these days pass by. Excitement blands with deep confusion, and I go from desperation and anxiety, to solitude and ease.
One side of me is eager for whatever movement I can get out of each moment, while the other side is tenderly searching for the energy of each thought, trying to understand the delicate temperature of each feeling, every emotion.
I rather kill the beast that torments my dreams and crowd up my every attempt for peace.
But in order to do that I must keep calm and centered, which is the very opposite of what my soul is struggling to overcome. My shaky hands are trying to hold firmly on to that heavy shiny sward, while my fragile feed touch the unsafe and unstable ground beneath me. I focus on the silent noise that I can find deep inside my troubled mind and with eyes closed I try to conquer my enemy, so determined to drain my strength, and dry out my hopes, to crush down my spirit.
The soil is overheated and infertile, I know well this battle will not be an easy one.
I also know that fate is not an option or a for granted act of destiny.
I must continue believing and persevering, and also holding on to my pathway.
One day, all this evil will be a dusty and blurry memory, kept locked or dead enough to never bother me again. But until then, I will be counting on gigantic angelical wings to hold me in and keep me alive. I will count on innocence and dreams to keep my head above water and forbid me of drowning into my own tears. One day, hopefully, the devils inside and out will surrender to brighter days and allow my strength to rule my destiny. That would be nice. That shall be.
Saying goodbye
Time to say goodbye is the hardest thing for me.
I don’t say goodbye to people, no, I am not that cruel to myself… But I need to say goodbye to stories, to time that passes, to moments that end. I must say farewell to now to start the new now that is already coming. I can’t help it. I can’t avoid the cruelty of time when time comes. I am afraid of not liking the times ahead of me, so I suffer. I am afraid of missing the time I am leaving behind. Somehow I feel that I live in fear of all these farewells, all these lost moments, usually the moments I didn’t choose for myself, moments that time, life or destiny eventually pushes me into.
[…]
If I can’t avoid this time to pass, I will try to follow the advice of a very special acquaintance of mine. As this dear friend (may I call you friend?) said:
“look at things with this: how interesting that this happens, funny”.
So will it be.
I will stop fighting it. I will give in.Trust and surrender to these kind words of wisdom…
So, posting this painting of Saint George, the peaceful warrior killing the dragon (that’s how i feel) I will try to accept the inevitable, get on my way to the airport and leave.
Farewell… There, it’s done.
Noisy silence
It’s never been easy being me.
I want to be here but also there.
I need freedom, but also love.
I feel passion and extrem boredom.
I am a mess, and yet peaceful.
I look for movement and color and rest my head in dark quietness.
luciana mariano 