Nelli Wilhelm
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A large head-like form emerges from vertical brushstrokes in grey, blue, yellow and white. A yellow-rimmed eye looks out from the right half of the picture. The paint runs downward in streaks, so that the figure seems at once to be forming and dissolving again.

The Eye That Remembers

There are gazes that watch us. And there are gazes that know something.

This figure did not appear all at once. It had been there a long time, hidden under layers of paint, darkness and movement. At some point it began to become visible. First an outline. Then a face. Finally this one eye.

But what is it looking at?

Perhaps it is not looking outward at all. Perhaps it guards something that was meant to be forgotten long ago. A memory. A person. A place that may never have existed.

The longer you stand before the picture, the harder the question becomes: are you watching the picture, or has the picture long since begun to watch you?