Marius Lehene

Region: West

Situations get interesting, in life as in painting, when inconsistencies appear. I have a sense of identity because I adopt certain positions relative to incongruent aspects of the outer world. These positions are similar to those one adopts vis-à-vis the virtual elements of a painting. An essence––let’s call it identity––itself virtual, must first appear somehow. Inconsistencies are the ones that imply its possibility; something not deeper but merely different. A slip, a split, a slide that turns me into a witness to myself and opens a space for thinking. This newly discovered difference then, somewhat disappointingly, allows yet another one, and so on. Such inconsistent representations situate a viewer, simultaneously, in multiple (virtually endless) positions. Like the paths in Feynman sum over histories, my histories are many. They weave Eastern European strains with North American and South Indian ones: the story of all of us today. By using transfer techniques, I work both from the front and from behind the painting’s surface. Work and self become each other’s slip, split, and slide.