This digital composition intertwines the haunting themes of a pop song with existential musings, portraying contemporary symbols of longing and spiritual ascension.
The haunting cry “Int biss u jien” in Aidan’s pop song Juliette, accompanied the creative urge for this digital composition, in February 2024. In Juliette, a solitary voice sometimes becomes a chorus, evoking primordial desires and confronting the very essence of personal and universal existence. This resonated deeply with me during a period of reflection on life’s inevitable arc, the common denominators of life and death. The song, became a gateway into a profound yearning for connection, purpose, and transcendence – a thread of longing that underpins this piece.
Against this introspective backdrop, the work draws inspiration from my deep dive into the philosophical musings of Franco Battiato during that period. Battiato’s reflections on existence and the metaphysical journey provided a guiding framework to explore not only what it means to exist but also the search for a kind of spiritual ascension beyond this realm. This personal quest is represented in the central figure of the woman – she embodies a synthesis of corporeal vulnerability and existential longing, as though poised at the threshold between the earthly and the ethereal. This duality is symbolised in her two sets of hands, suggestive of her ambivalence and transcendental reach; that which Battiato refers to as the horizontal and the vertical lines.
The woman’s form is coloured in striking pinks and muted flesh tones, with an overlay of texture that blurs the boundaries between body and background. She stands exposed yet emotionally guarded, a figure of both invitation and introspection. Her posture and gaze convey a mix of concern and grace, reflecting a quiet acceptance of mortality alongside a hope for transcendence. This state of suspended contemplation suggests she carries unfulfilled memories, regrets, and desires, resonating with the timeless story of Magdalene, a figure defined by longing, repentance, and the quest for transcendence.
At the heart of the piece, lying on a golden field beneath an old oak tree, is The Penitent Magdalene by Francesco Hayez, subtly inverted. This inversion not only deconstructs the traditional themes associated with Magdalene: remorse, reflection, and redemption, but also brings her forward into a contemporary context. Magdalene, once a figure steeped in religious penitence, is here reimagined as a symbol of spiritual contemplation and existential desire. In Hayez’s work, she embodies humility and penitence; in this reimagining, she transforms into an icon of longing and awakening – a Magdalene who seeks meaning not only in the divine but in the intricate web of earthly existence and its entangled desires.
The background itself is layered with a surreal landscape, merging organic floral motifs with abstract textures. This environment serves as both a memoryscape and a dreamscape; a place where nature and fantasy coexist. A rising moon balances the daylight, a reminder of the night’s promises in the song, of romantic embrace and a dance that dispels the need for sleep. This liminal space is alive with the tension between beauty and loss, symbolised by fading florals and the spectral landscape on either side. The figure thus becomes a traveller within this landscape, straddling the realms of memory and imagination, desire and detachment.
“Int biss u jien” became a soundtrack around which this composition revolves, a hymn to the fleeting nature of human connection, the fragility of promises, and the persistent quest for something beyond. It is a work that seeks, in Battiato’s own words, to make one “worthy of the other dimension.” Through digital collage, I merge fragments of memory, symbol, and existential questioning into a singular vision – a vision of a Magdalene reborn, who longs not only for repentance but for release, for meaning, for an ascendance that is as personal as it is universal.
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In October 2024, this artwork was awarded with an Honourable Mention for its outstanding display of remarkable aesthetic, originality, and technical expertise, distinguished among artworks across all fine art categories, within the 9th International CFA Artist of the Month competition hosted on the Circle-Arts website.
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