Annabel Paran
Hot To Get Good At Dying
Exhibition from May 12th to June 1st, 2023
„..all losses are temporary.“
Annabel Paran’s work contemplates the spiritual dimensions of loss. How To Get Good At Dying examines in particular the notion of letting go of parts of the self which were shaped by, and are attached to systems of oppression - the same systems we wish to give up on.
In the context of fast, consumerist culture, mourning is a rare pause, and therefore subversive: a site of meaningful “dysfunction.” In this show’s proposition, we are both the dead and the grievers. What are we left with if we let go, get saturated with and integrate our losses? Can it be a celebration? Can there be joy in loss?
Painting assemblages made with traditional plant dyes create an abstract, poetic landscape of departure, transformation, and reorientation; maintaining a delicate tension between control and lack thereof, transience and otherworldly time frames. The pieces draw on ancient visual traditions of grief, care-giving and sense-making, such as death scrolls, tomb hieroglyphs, and guidance books for the dead. Bio-plastic sculptures echo emblems of contemporary culture, and play with notions of embodiment, artificiality, sublime and abject; they are familiar, but dissolving, morphing, transforming.
The materials used both in painting and sculpture are inherently fleeting materials, occupied with temporality, on the edge between living and dead.
The installations arrange emotionally charged, meditative environments to linger in the space of being lost; and perhaps, feel held through it.
Annabel Paran is a Jerusalem-born, Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist. In 2020 she graduated with highest honors from Pratt Institute, NYC, USA. She was part of several art collectives, including The Moving Comp. (NYC) and Bait Rek (Jerusalem). Paran has exhibited her work in New York, Berlin, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, including at Pace University and the Katonah Museum in NYC and Hamiffal Project in Jerusalem.
Her current practice involves dancing, writing, sculpture and painting installations. Paran prioritizes sustainable materials in her work, and uses experimental and traditional techniques to cultivate a more direct and collaborative relationship with the material world.
