Olivia Aguiar

Like a jewel thrown at a Polluted brookling

Throughout pop culture and science fiction, the empty chair and the mirror commonly signify an absent presence. Wise tales tell stories of empty chairs appearing to be filled at night or shadows looming in mirrors. In horror movies like "The Changeling," an empty chair alludes to a ghostly presence and the folklore phenomenon known as "Bloody Mary" alludes to the mirror as a passageway beyond the grave. In "The Empty Chair is Not so Empty," Helen Jaksch describes the empty, worn chair as a signifier of a body that elates an innate longingness to be filled, especially when the chair is accompanied by memories of those who once filled it (105). Across my body of work I incorporate images of chairs and mirrors taken from my grandfather's archives as invitations for my grandfather's spirit to join me. Particularly, with "Like a jewel thrown at a Polluted brookling" the central motif represents a photograph of a mirror found in my grandfather's archives. In this work, I disturb the mirror's reflective surface, weaving bodies and smoke between the two planes to create permeability between the two sides of the "passageway" (life and death).

“'A beautiful Autumn day outside,Inside a stormy, wintery day.A day full of possibilities,Yet inside a black hole of tremendousLoneliness!Ah, Life is interesting.Too oftenly missed and wastedLike a jewel thrown at aPolluted brookling!I love Life, now that I missed Her,' ('Forgive' Luís Aguiar September 27, 1995).”