Green(ish) Hermeticism
Crossroads are both forbidden yet inevitable, the dangerous but profitable locus of transactions for the journeyman or merchant, a place often haunted, often sacred. Hermes, from whom the term Hermeticism is derived, controls crossroads; he is the god of communication and its opposite, silence, similarly commerce and burglary. A green Hermes, however, is nature speechless, nature crossed with commerce. As is well evident, this relationship has gone awry. It is as if the senses of man have been dissolved, because we understand very little, or nothing at all, of the living organism, namely in respect to ecology and ourselves. Green Hermetics are those who recognize life in the undercurrents (even if only in slivers), and therefore rise to challenge all forms of consciousness enslavement, to liberate the image from the machinations of mass production and the manipulations of political rhetoric. A Green Hermeticist understands that nothing is ever exactly as it seems, believes in the poetics and alchemy of ambivalence, and consequently always remains tempted to explore fuller possibilities of understanding man’s constructive and destructive impulses. By submitting to the total mystery of the materials–those means by which one communicates with, to, and through–the union of men and nature is at least obtainable in a work of art.
The paintings and drawings in this exhibition derive from sources as diverse as Giordano Bruno’s Classical and Renaissance memory techniques to specific lines from César Vallejo and William Carlos Williams poems. This exhibition will be Nathlie’s debut solo exhibition as well as her first time exhibiting in Miami, Florida.
Nathlie will be in residence at the de la Cruz collection. For information about the residency and other visiting artists please visit delacruzcollection.org
