Author: Lily Selthofner

Visual arts selections:

Poetry Selections:

Essay:

This selection of visual art and poetry pieces articulates themes which occur throughout life — namely the paradoxes/portals lying amongst the dimensions of ‘here and now,’ and in the border between mundane and universal imaginative spaces. My artwork is often inspired by the various planes of existence that we dream through in our day-to-day lives. We indulge in potentialities, weaving in and out of various lucidities to co-construct reality with one another. For example, my pieces “9th Dimension” and “10th Dimension” are explorative documentations of a recurring dream I had in 2020. Dreamscape demands a contemplation of interconnectedness — the space between ourselves and every other thing is fundamentally similar, existing within and beyond awareness.

Similarly, my piece “Our House” is a form and structure emerging from a loose watercolor wash wherein I attempt to literally draw out the feelings of home — an animate idea shared in our collective memories. Here, the loose colors of ‘house’ is the space which births the lines of ‘home,’ complementary yet self-transcendent. “Latent” more specifically explores the choreography of art-making. The piece’s name, and form, are reminiscent of the late-night energies it was created with. The process of creating this piece was a meditative dance, concretized in paint, bringing the ephemeral into the physical, acting as a portal in a way.

In “Breath,” I am reflecting on the collective pandemic trauma’s physicalization in space. The piece was inspired by the textures and forms of various cloth masks that I have — the two vertical lines represent both elastic ear-pieces on masks, and two socially distanced people — both of which are physically separated but vitally united in effort. A mouth-like liminality emerges as these two lines define and transcend boundaries between the internal and external, from the cellular to the societal.

As for the poems, “Fawning From Vitality,” is an exploration of temporalities. Reflecting on the smallness of the present in the grandiosity of existence, it is an attempt to cope with the fatigue of searching for meaning across temporal leaps and bounds. Likewise, “Refraction” is an exploration of spatiality. I wrote this poem on the subway, as my environment refracted into multiplicities of spatial existences of myself, and my fellow-train car passengers. Where the subway train becomes the ancient earthworm, I sifted through the desires and delusions that fill the gaps between ‘here’ and ‘there’ on these mundane paths — offering portals into imaginative infinities.