Her Song of Freedom
Every one of us lives our own life and, amidst all our everyday realities, we tend to forget about our dreams. Yet when we are caught up in a whirl of despair, our dreams gush up to the surface and are converted into a new reality, into a desire for life, into a declaration of love.
When we find ourselves at an existential crossroads, reflected in a loss of certainty about our own existence underpinned by everything we have experienced before or as a hypothesis of the rational and the conscious or even as an energetic and cosmic continuum post mortem, dreams fuse with the survival instinct and impose upon us the will to continue living. They command us to live our life to the fullest.
The reality of the existential past prevails over the hypothetical nothing. And, inevitably, the reality and the dream merge together as one.
The answer to Borges’ crossroads, that is, to the question of how we choose can be discerned from decisions that were made by our self throughout our life. A declaration of love emerges from deep within and helps us rediscover the joys that we often, too often have failed to cherish: the light, the joy of living.
The works of art of Eminjana (“Emi”) testify to the truth of this assertion.
Manzoni’s words “twice in the dust, twice on the altar” in his ode not only apply to Napoleon, but also to Emi.
Divine assistance, whether we believe in God’s gift or destiny or not, gave her what is probably a unique chance to live again twice in this dimension.
The dream that surges from the insanity we find ourselves in, with the horrid realisation that what were once our apparent certainties have vanished, is indeed powerful. Such a dream roars from her paintings and floods them with light. The scream of happiness transforms into a colour. Love for life breathes from every one of her art works, conveying the most beautiful and profound message an artist can and must impart.
Emi’s works reveal the absence of melancholy and sadness, of pain and fear, so often seen in the creative works of many artists.
She does not ‘murder the moonlight’, she does not exalt the power and the force of things nor praise physical beauty but searches for the essence of the Creation.
And so the poverty of everyday life is redressed by the ode to happiness, the burst of love.
The proximity and influence of the artist Miro Peršolja has enabled Emi to find for herself the most suitable means of expression and technical solutions.
A nightingale that has just begun to sing will gradually perfect its skills and owe gratitude to its teacher only for having learned the stave. But if the nightingale is out of tune or does not have a profound message to deliver, its song will not reach any hearts and even the best of teachers will not be of any use.
Emi carries within herself a truth that is unique and absolute.
A truth that pierces every shield, overcomes every barrier and touches the soul directly. Her colours are intense as are the vibrations of her spirit, her forms are the notes of a harmonious and gentle melody. Regardless of the narration, they become a pretence to achieve the final destination – a fusion of dream and reality.
When we fly very high, the world seems so small, insignificant, distant, almost petty. We look like ants, but ants also have viruses and maybe viruses have their own viruses….
Emi flies high, but what appeals to the viewer, her magnetism, are the light, the life, God. Her yearning for the divine is manifested so that she takes us, lost in the vanity of everyday life, by the hand and leads us to genuine values. That is an enterprise she can undertake with great ease, as she has found herself at fateful crossroads twice, and twice was given the chance to continue her life in this dimension.
Perhaps that other dimension is infinitely more beautiful, but the certainty of not knowing it makes us prefer the one we live. Strange as it seems, Ancient Greek culture teaches us that a wise man knows he does not know anything. So we may conclude: we are not wise men. And even if we do know something, we surely lack wisdom.
Emi is an artist and, like with Beethoven, she creates her own 'Ode of Joy' in her every work of art. Her message tells a universal truth and, with her convincing means of expression, she is sending all of us her ‘Song of Freedom’.
Prof. Antonio Maria Pivetta, art critic
