“And there he was, with the bitter wind cutting to the bone, taking short, quick steps, hopping and jumping about in the snow; his teeth chattered away, as if keeping time with his own footsteps. ”
— Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
Within her work, Titania Seidl questions the role of images in shaping societal perceptions. Sourcing image fragments from art historical archives as well as from contemporary snapshots, information diagrams, or the layouts of smartphone apps, Seidl probes the parallels between current sociopolitical landscapes and the annals of human history, pondering whether the lessons gleaned from bygone epochs can inform our trajectory into the future. Anecdotal moments encounter historical objects, with the artist adopting various narrative perspectives. Her oeuvre transcends temporal boundaries, forging a nexus between the present and the past, between lived realities and a nuanced sense of nostalgia.
Catalysed by the onset of the pandemic, Titania Seidl has embarked on a profound exploration of medieval iconography, with recurrent nods to Giovanni Boccaccio's "The Decameron". Within her artistic narrative, imagery from the Early Renaissance and medieval periods converges with mundane contemporary artifacts and symbols, permeated by an undertone of mysticism.
Seidl deftly employs the lexicon of cosmic and mystical thought, posing provocative inquiries: What transpires when the aesthetic of religious portrayal, embodied by the meticulously rendered drapery of Raphael's Sistine Madonna, intersects with the banal surface of T-shirts suspended on a clothesline? How does the collision between quotidian existence and lofty abstraction reshape our understanding of value and significance? Does the portrayal of a mundane slipper with exquisite painterly precision imbue it with newfound profundity, or does it merely underscore its inherent mundanity?
The juxtaposition of the mundane and the profound is accentuated by the painter's deliberate choice to combine watercolor with oil paint. The fluid, unrestrained strokes of watercolor cascade across the canvas, contrasting with the rigid, meticulous lines achievable through oil painting. From splattered paint in multicolored hues to recognizable objects and organic forms like houseplants, from the outlines of human faces to mundane household items and discarded gloves—every element converges seamlessly, devoid of tension, into an ongoing state of evolution.
These contrasting painterly techniques converge within a singular composition, offering a nuanced exploration of aesthetic tension. The artist grapples with the intricacies of painting technique, departing from a singular artistic signature and eschewing uniformity in her rendering of each figure. Does the canvas aspire to photographic realism or evoke the essence of a medieval tapestry? Is it a mere pattern, or does scripted illusion permeate the imagery? The artist deftly appropriates diverse stylistic elements to capture the essence of her subject matter.
Throughout the appropriative process of her work, Seidl maintains a perpetual dialogue with the canvas, facilitating a precise examination of overlooked details and marginal annotations, elevating the banal and inconspicuous to a central position.
In the absence of foreknowledge regarding the eventual outcome, Seidl embarks on a quest for insights within the canvas, allowing herself to be guided step by step by the painted expressions. Titania Seidl deliberately retains the identity of quotations within her work, eschewing a uniform painterly surface. Instead, she cultivates fractures and encourages connections from diverse sources to converge within a single image, giving rise to a dynamic interplay of question and answer.
