Hollow marine vessels, assembled from wood and steel planks, nailed and welded at the joints, resemble configurations of bone and muscle. In their diverse formats, whether military battalions or fishing boats, they espouse human idiosyncrasies and represent a warehouse of human experience.
Their untethered course across the element of water signifies the universality of life – a force that facilitates the journey but overpowers and transcends it.
In Bon Voyage, contemporary artists, Ekaterina Sisfontes and Sonny Singh collaboratively construct a unique visual narrative of multi-media watercraft. Reimagined boats, barges, ships, rafts, and submarines signify objective nodes of life such as birth, destiny, and death as well as subtle components of human identity such as dreams, happiness, and beauty.
Paradoxes fingerprint human existence much like the wake of a marine vehicle. Hence, each installation embodies illusory dualities that frame greed against drudgery, vanity against mortality, and frailty against fortitude.
Russian-born, Swedish artist, Sisfontes, traveled extensively by sea and studied the philosophical nature of marine voyages. Over a four-week residency at Cube Gallery, the artist introspects this expedition as a series of boats that represent the deep solitude of mortal life.
Sisfontes holds these internal sojourns Mind Ship, against the infinite continuum of life, Eternity Boat. Between these primary ports of the mind and eternity, she charts the dynamic intersection of free will, Boat of Hope, existential gambles, Boat of Fortune, and pre-determined stations, Destiny Boat.
Curatorial text: Elvina Halli