Waters of Ours
The Valley Taos, NM, November 18th - January 20 2024
“The spirit meets the infinite self and then it is two. Two means to cry; two means we can say, “Hello there!” Or we can call out, or cry in tears, because we are now in reflection, in duality. We can now mirror, we are the image.”- Joseph Rael
Once I had a dream that someone I knew from my childhood had grown and chosen to become water.
What I mean by that is that he sank himself into a pond and became it.
In the dream, I went to visit the pond.
I knelt down and asked the water many questions and the pond answered
with glittering breaks in the surface. After some time, I asked what I truly wanted to know,
and I don’t remember what the question was exactly,
but when I asked, a glowing feathered fish unfurled from below in response before swimming off.
Then, from the center of the water, the pond rose from his own depths and waded over to the bank.
I asked questions I remember,
I asked what it was like to exist in solitude for that long, to have your self absorbed into the pond.
The pond said he was at peace with his decision, clarifying that it was certainly difficult at first, but
he loved being the pond.
At the very end of the dream, the pond walked to his brother and embraced him.
“Two prisoners in continent cells, who communicate by blows struck on the wall. The wall is what separates them, but also what permits them to communicate. So it is with us and God. Every separation is a bond.” - May Sarton
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Works (as seen left to right)
1. The Surface Answered Breaking
Soft pastel on paper, 11” x 7.5”, 2023.
2. Light beget these organs, running water
Soft pastel on paper, 11” x 15”, 2023.
3. Dancers
Soft pastel on paper, 22” x 22”, 2023.
4. Sight Full of Water
Graphite and soft pastel on paper, 11”x 15”, 2023.
5. Orbiting Breath to Body
Soft pastel on paper, 11” x 15”, 2023.
6. Listen Now You’re Older
Soft pastel on paper, 11” x 15”, 2023.
7. Gentle eye, I am what you endure
Soft pastel on paper, 7.5” x “11, 2023. (not pictured)
8. Offshoot Downstream
Soft pastel on paper, 7.5” x “11, 2022. (not pictured)
9. Bond
Soft pastel on paper, 8.5” x 15”, 2023. (not pictured)
“One cannot bathe twice in the same river because already, in their inmost recesses, the human being shares the destiny of flowing water.”
-Gaston Bachelard
“The Valley is pleased to present Waters of Ours, an exhibition of new works on paper by Richmond based artist Lowe Fehn. Utilizing a personal archive of photographs, dreams, and poetry for reference material, their works are then developed meditatively with a rhythmic and repetitive embedding of soft pastel into paper. Working in diaphanous layers built up over time, the artist enacts an absorption of many parts into one—slowly uniting the image with the substrate itself until they are inseparable.
In this exhibition, the artist seeks to interface scenes from the natural world with energetic movement, particularly through the depiction of reflections on the surface of water. These swirling, glimmering phenomena point to the boundless and ecstatic union between light and water. Reflections expose the limits of our vision, uniting us with the sacred by reminding us of that which is just beyond our perception. By imbuing the act of depicting reflections with the intention to honor and reconnect to the elemental world, Fehn experiments with how the creation of ceremony allows for the witness of spiritual movement within perceptual experiences. Ceremony, to Fehn, is an intentional practice which enriches experience by opening each moment to awe. Through the framework of ceremonious action/motion/thought, the work of making a visual depiction becomes a means of healing, reflecting, and communicating.
Tuning into the sensual experience of being in communion with the elemental world is also a way of illuminating the intuitively felt connections shared between living beings. In Fehn’s works, rocky cliffs yield to the sparkling mist, placid ponds and excitable rivers lap against rocks, and water birds glide slowly across the dense plane of a lake. These works ask us to magnify the subtle and powerful union between the seen and unseen forces of our reality. For this lesson, there is no better teacher than water, which demonstrates how to constantly be melting, misting, flowing, how to hold light in your depths, and reflect it back. In Gaston Bachelard’s Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, the philosopher gently urges us to see by means of water. Water calls for a seeing in depth, and also a seeing beyond: ‘the lake or pool of stagnant water stops us near its bank. It says to our will: you shall go no further; you should go back to looking at distant things, at the beyond.’”
In this exhibition, the artist seeks to interface scenes from the natural world with energetic movement, particularly through the depiction of reflections on the surface of water. These swirling, glimmering phenomena point to the boundless and ecstatic union between light and water. Reflections expose the limits of our vision, uniting us with the sacred by reminding us of that which is just beyond our perception. By imbuing the act of depicting reflections with the intention to honor and reconnect to the elemental world, Fehn experiments with how the creation of ceremony allows for the witness of spiritual movement within perceptual experiences. Ceremony, to Fehn, is an intentional practice which enriches experience by opening each moment to awe. Through the framework of ceremonious action/motion/thought, the work of making a visual depiction becomes a means of healing, reflecting, and communicating.
Tuning into the sensual experience of being in communion with the elemental world is also a way of illuminating the intuitively felt connections shared between living beings. In Fehn’s works, rocky cliffs yield to the sparkling mist, placid ponds and excitable rivers lap against rocks, and water birds glide slowly across the dense plane of a lake. These works ask us to magnify the subtle and powerful union between the seen and unseen forces of our reality. For this lesson, there is no better teacher than water, which demonstrates how to constantly be melting, misting, flowing, how to hold light in your depths, and reflect it back. In Gaston Bachelard’s Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, the philosopher gently urges us to see by means of water. Water calls for a seeing in depth, and also a seeing beyond: ‘the lake or pool of stagnant water stops us near its bank. It says to our will: you shall go no further; you should go back to looking at distant things, at the beyond.’”
