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LABYRINTH

Edward Granger

The circle often represents the never-ending cycle: the personal journey of self-discovery, spirituality, and sexuality. As an endless symbol, the circle itself can be considered “alive“. Just as we assign meaning to the circle based on its form and structure, we can map identity to ourselves based on the position and shape that we make for ourselves in our societies and communities.

The circle often represents the never-ending cycle: the personal journey of self-discovery, spirituality, and sexuality. As an endless symbol, the circle itself can be considered “alive“. Just as we assign meaning to the circle based on its form and structure, we can map identity to ourselves based on the position and shape that we make for ourselves in our societies and communities.

This oeuvre of spirited works, which istitled “Labyrinth” can be seen as a complicated network of passages through stages in life in which to find one's direction or identity through social ‘customs’ and breakdown of rules. This aims to illuminate the essential role that identities play within society, and to challenge how we see and connect with ourselves. By using various symbols—most prominently, the circle—the viewer is asked to interpret the concepts of balance, continuity, and strength. The colours affect the perception of one’s physical and emotional state. When viewing each each piece, the eye is forced to see blurred lines, shapes, and colours and thereby consider what to identify with most.

Each piece uses the blurring of lines to reflect the idea that borders and boundaries can always be broken down. The stains and imperfections on each piece represent the impressions that humanity leaves behind through movement, migration, life and death. Various materials are used to express oppositions that exist in today’s world: organic vs. synthetic, natural vs. distorted. The artist used fire to create burn marks on each piece, which represent destruction caused by society. It is this destruction that entraps the individual: though part of the medium is burned away, others are transformed. This imbues each piece with the hope that individuals can go through a trial by fire to come through reformed, changed, or transformed. 

The artist challenges the idea of an immaterial life that plays out in today’s digital era. Technology has made life—and the expression of life through social media—feel precise, exact, and tangible in a way that physical lives rarely are. Through the circle, the viewer can revisit the perception of “the self” and discover the potential for change.

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