Christine Sefolosha: Exploring the "Beauty in Darkness" Trope
Christine Sefolosha, In My Arms, 2018
When I first discovered her haunting artworks, I immediately thought that if you mixed the fanciful colors of Marc Chagall with the macabre creatures found in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, then you would get Christine Sefolosha’s vagabond-inspired motifs. The subjects of her artworks can be hard to look at sometimes due to their ominous nature, but the dream-like way she depicts these creatures keep the viewer from looking away.
Sefolosha is described as a visionary artist, because her artworks depict the worlds of her traveling which can only be found in her dreams and in the innermost workings of her mind. From her dreams are where she finds inspiration. The places and creatures that Sefolosha portrays cannot be found in reality, for these environmental elements can only be created by Sefolosha’s distinguished subconscious, having no more power of the places she travels to than the viewer does, but it is a true benefaction that she allows the viewer into a very intimate part of her world.
Born in Montreux, Switzerland, Sefolosha’s artworks are representative of her life experiences. Not only is she a traveler in her dreams, but she has been a world traveler in reality. She is greatly influenced by her time spent in South Africa for which she lived for nine years. Now located back in Switzerland, much of her life is encompassed by this theme of travel due to her studio being located in a train station. However, just because she is currently rooted in one place does not mean that her true spirit does not wander even though her corporal form has found a permanent home.
The dreams that she depicts are truthful portrayals of places her mind travels to, much like in reality. Most dreams are romanticized versions of our daily life, and typically dreams are represented as such in art. As one leaves adolescence, nightmares become fewer and fewer, and if people have frequent nightmares one questions their mental state because dreams are one of our direct lines to our subconscious. Thus, a viewer of her artworks may be curious as to the things she dreams about because there are fantastical elements as well as eerie elements throughout these portrayals of her dream travels.
These motifs can be seen in, In My Arms, which is chaotic and whimsical in nature. In this painting, there are many elements and creatures that leave the viewer with the ability to regard something new every time they look at it. The main element that the gaze is drawn to is the person-like-being that holds all of the other creatures in their embrace. Amongst these creatures are a white horse with an ominous shadow, a person with an additional face on their stomach and an intricate bird attached to their skull, a shadow person reaching for a waning moon, disturbing masks with staring eyes, and many other haunting creatures. As the main being is holding all of these other creatures in their arms, it could be interpreted that the creatures in the arms may be all of the scary, yet beautiful elements that are hidden away in the central being’s mind.
Sefolosha explores these complex environments with the utmost of honesty because her dreams have elements of fancifulness and nightmarishness. In this way, the viewer gets the most vulnerable portrayal possible from the artist, and allows us to view these intimate scenes through a rawness. This is because people do not conventionally like stepping into these dark corners of our subconscious in which we all have, but Sefolosha welcomes us with open arms to view hers for a moment.
Although truthful depictions, Sefolosha’s artworks are grim, and forces the viewer to think about the headspace of the artist. Nevertheless, these artworks have a raw allure aesthetically, which encourages one to ponder the beauty in darkness trope found throughout art history that continues today.
For centuries, artists have used their own pain and the pain of others to create stunning artworks. Some artists have even been praised for their aesthetically pleasing portrayals of macabre subjects. For example, one of Pablo Picasso’s most iconically known series is his blue series in which he conveys all of his subjects in different hues of blue and white to express a somber tone. One can imagine that this was a period of suffering in Picasso’s life.
For the artworks created by Vincent Van Gogh, some of his artworks that resonate most with his audience are the ones where his psychological struggles are most overt, and some consider these to be his most stunning works.
In a case like Van Gogh, patrons and critics encouraged this notion of the “suffering artist” in exploitative manners, but more so because thinking of an artist as a tortured soul was appealing to many and added to the allusive persona of the artist. For these reasons, the beauty in darkness trope can be problematic, because the artist is not then seen as just an artist and can be dismissive of mental struggles that they may be dealing with.
As the beauty in darkness trope has been used in such a way in art history, it has most certainly glamorized these fragile subject matters for the benefit of characters in the art world that are not usually the artist. For these reasons, one should examine the beauty in darkness trope and the artworks that embody this theme in a delicate, aware manner.
However, for many artists who wish to depict darker and more macabre themes in an aesthetically pleasing manner it comes from a place of their own experience. Some artists choose to create these darker images in order to find closure or in management of the struggles that they deal with. Artists who maneuver this trope in that way are doing so through their own truth, which is what makes the fruition of the artwork so magnificent.
So, the beauty in darkness trope should continue in artworks, as long as it comes for the artist’s own experience. This is because the aesthetic beauty that is found in dolor cannot be denied. When the trope is created in such a way, not only can it be a therapeutic experience for the artist, but also the viewer. This theme resonates with all of us, so not shying away from these dark elements and facing them head on in a vulnerable manner can be extremely powerful. Sefolosha as an oneiric shares with the world her depictions of this dynamic theme in such a way and should be referred to as an example to other artists who wish to create artworks that could be a part of the beauty in darkness trope.
