St Sulpice, Switzerland: A Quiet Lakeside Village With a Room Full of Dreams
I stare at the guy, he’s staring at me.
I study his eye, piercing me. His tattoos, on his noise, his neck, his chest, his shoulders.
He looks young, his lips are perfect.
He’s wearing Maui’s hook, that’s how I know he’s from Oceania.
I have the same pendant in abalone, a present from my cousin Francesca, that brought it to me from New Zealand.
I look at him and I wish he’d be my future husband.
The caption under the painting says “Guardien des traversées”. Guardian of the crossings.
Basically the same job as Charon, but represented in a totally different way.
I stare at the painting and let feelings and emotions invade me.
I’m surprised by my reaction.
When did I become so sensitive? This is new.
When my friend Abeer invited me to the collective exhibition “Voyages” in Saint Sulpice, I immediately accepted.
“They agreed to display 5 of my works”, she informs me with joy. “I will send you the invitation”.
Abeer is multitalented. She is a high-performance athlete that competed in taekwondo at the Olympic Games in Athens, representing Egypt, but also an accomplished artist and currently pursing her master in sports management. She sits in the board of World Olympians Association.
The first time we met, she showed me some of her digital artwork representing an octopus. “ I love octopuses” she told me.
Me too. We were at the restaurant, and I was about to eat the one I had ordered a few minutes before.
I’m not a visual person.
The power of my expression is in the written word, not in the images.
However, or maybe precisely because of this, I receive this invitation as an invitation to expand my mind, my experience, learn something new and maybe meet new people. It’s not just an exhibition. Nothing is just “that”. There’s always more coming.
To promote her work, Abeer had realized some postcards reproducing her paintings. She wants me to choose one and keep it. I select the big pink candy flow that is floating in a purple sky, with a kid hanging on the stick.
I look at it now, while I’m typing this post. I still have to decide where to position it. For the time being, the candy flow is on my desk.
“It was a dream I made when I was 6. I still remember it very vividly”.
When she hands out the postcard I see its title: Let dreams be.
Encouraging. That’s a message for me, 100%.
When I arrive at the opening of the event, Abeer guides me around. She shows me her 5 pieces of digital artwork, of which 4 are displayed in the hall and 1 is showcased outside. While she is playing host together with the organizers and the other artists, I explore the paintings one by one. I love the palette of colors that she uses. They are all warm and lively and they resume her story, the story of a 6-year old kid that was lifted by a candy flow in Cairo and travelled across time and countries to land in Saint Sulpice. Two extremes connected:
A megalopolis and a village
The desert and the lake
Intense hot and cold
Cairo and St Sulpice
Egypt and Switzerland
Crowd and loneliness
And a lot more.
That’s a hell of a trip.
Then I pass to scrutinize the artwork of the other artists.
Each of them is whispering to me.
About trips I did.
About trips I have to do.
About places I have to see.
About places I’ll never see.
About my inner trip. About strength. About resilience. About determination.
The Northern Lights. The Pyramids.
Iran. Switzerland.
Urban landscapes in a case.
Colored fragmented eggshells.
Icon technique.
Butterflies.
Faces. Eyes. Looks. Shapes. Shadows. Lights. Bodies.
That’s how I end up staring at that beautiful man. I wish he could come out of the frame and live.
It amazes me how two rooms in a Swiss village can contain so many emotions and provide such a powerful impression. It really conveys the emotions and the experiences of traveling.
It is open till the 13th of June, so if you are around, you are still on time.
