LIMINAL ECSTAsY

LIMINAL ECSTASY, 2016
1240 x 2240 x 70 mm 2 panels  (MUSEUM GLASS AND BLACK LACQUER BOX FRAME)
Swarovski crystals on digital art, C-type print, Original Diasec® Glossy Plexi / Alu-Dibond 2+3mm

“Liminal ecstasy” is an 'entombment' of a contemporary-looking man, juxtaposed with Bernini’s “Blessed Ludovica Albertoni”. Both figures seem to be in the grip of an encounter with the ‘divine’. AD-Reflex equates the experience of religious ecstasy in the figure of Bernini to that of substitute forms of contemporary ecstasy, as can be found in drugs and various pharmaceuticals, also capable of inducing ‘altered states’. 

The impetus for this work is deeply rooted in inner conflict. During a Paris residency in 2014, Conradie was witness to an unguarded, vulnerable moment of a drug addict on a public bench in front of the Cité des Arts through his studio window. The scene instinctively sparked memories of Bernini's depiction of Christian martyrs, which filled the artist with the immediate desire to capture this private moment, mixed with equal feelings of guilt and intrusion.  After a moment of introspection, the artist realised that these two seemingly ‘unlikely’ sources are in fact perfect mirror images.

The ‘kitschy’, resplendence of the image, suffused in the hazy, eerie glow of artificial light, seems to signal the artists’ intention to inject the image with a tongue-in-the-cheek, quasi-religious importance. The seductive surface of the DIASEC, combined with the opulent use of different cuts and shades of Swarovski crystals heighten the ambivalence of the work - the uncertain boundary between mockery and piety. For the artists, spiritual ecstasy is part of the creative process.

AD-Reflex asks important questions on what constitutes the difference between the sacred and the profane, and what is the difference between challenging tradition and rejecting it? “Liminal ecstasy” awakens in the viewer the pleasure of ‘self-preservation’, the titillation that comes from playing at peril with the promise of safety in another reality.