A Collection Of Bruises.docx

A COLLECTION OF BRUISES, CURSES, BABY TEETH an Exhibit by Some Lady (Marionne Contreras) I was on my way to the fourth floor this morning to deliver some paperwork and I chanced upon this quaint exhibition at the Small Gallery. I was attracted by the pastel colors and the neon lights so I went inside to check the exhibit. Immediately I was transported to a world of childhood memories. The exhibit was poetry in visual form. Yet there was something unsettling about the assemblages and other installations. The soft pastel colors and objects have a dream-like effect. But when I took a closer look at the exhibit pieces, the surreal atmosphere that they evoked gave me a weird feeling of familiarity with the objects and what they seem to represent. She should have added a soundscape of eerie lullabies played on a music box for full effect, but what do I know? I’m just a stranger being confronted with someone else’s demons. Demons that bear a resemblance to my own. I felt like I was in a nightmare masquerading as a sweet dream. Like the artist (Some Lady), I loved collecting stuff, too, as a kid; coins, stamps, books, knick-knacks, etc. There was a time when I had to let go of piece of stone I just picked up from some pavement and which I kept for years like some precious gem. I still can perfectly recall the butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling I got when I had to throw it away in the river. That bittersweet feeling of parting with something you cherished for so long. I think that the artist is rather masochistic for allowing painful memories to resurface by concretizing them in her work. Her work is somewhat disturbing. But I admire her courage in exposing such a vulnerable part of herself in this exhibit. For me, the exhibit is about memory. It is a collection of emotionally-charged memories skilfully assembled by the artist in tangible form. It is also about how memory can sometimes be a curse. What do we do with memories that are too much to bear? Why do we often cling to things we can never truly possess by enshrining them in our memories?