Veronika Pot - The valley is quiet, the torment indefinitely.

11.03.2023 - 29.04.2023

Base-Alpha Gallery

Kattenberg 12, 2140 Antwerpen, Belgium

Veronika Pot's mountain landscapes have been photographed during her travels over the past three years. These photos were printed several times in the darkroom, cut up and put back together as a puzzle collage.
The final image is a digital archival print to which color accents were added with acrylic paint. These interventions with color arise from a compulsive need to disrupt the images, as well as to add precise visual observations of the landscape.

There are few details to discover in the 14 miniatures, we cannot look into the eyes and many figures seem to have mutated. The figurines meandering between violence and absurdity. Two figures seem as if they are being shot. Others depict taunting and torturing a bear. Yet another a struggle between two figures. A family lined up, blissful or sinking into a swamp.
The miniatures originate from an involvement with art-historical and philosophical subjects, such as Goya's paintings. They are given a new emotional and personal shape by the scene made of toy figures, beeswax and spray paint, twisting and turning reality upside down.

As in Veronika Pot's previous installations, sound is a recurring element, sometimes in combination with video. This soundscape shows us sketchy textual fragments and musings that have been put together into a 'monologue'. The texts have been digitally converted into speech sounds that mimic the human voice. Stephan Pot's music connects the whole.

'The valley is quiet, the torment indefinitely' is an installation consisting of 14 photographs, 14 miniature sculptures and a soundscape.
Veronika Pot's process is about transforming images. Capturing moments to remember them again and to process them selectively and fragmentarily into new images. The original image has often become unrecognizable and raises the question of the context in which it originated. They are landscapes, mountains, figures, ... that Pot tries to 're-view', 're-memorize' and 're-visualize'. Ambiguity is the core of Veronika Pot's visual language.

Ceramic supports for the photo’s and Torments by Nele Bollen
Soundscape in collaboration with Stephan Pot