Portraits of Situations 2014/15 by Veronika Ban

I chose to continue my art research with a new series, called Portraits of Situations, where artworks are named by numbers and all of them are recognizable through this motif of bricks as a representative symbol of my brand. There are different themes and topics in these artworks, of course, but they all have this same constant symbol of bricks. The first series that contained bricks actually started back in 2012 with the title About the Bricks, but at the time it was not planned or chosen as a main symbol of my brand, it was spontaneous inspiration and action, as usual with my art. Now, however, I deliberately choose this idea of bricks for presenting and explaining my brand conceptually with stronger and clearer recognition.
Bricks are like particles, together creating something bigger. As in life, moments create time, experiences compose life stories, and individuals make society… For example, in music we have melody which is composed of musical notes; and this concept of melody as a symbol of life, for example, I used in 2007 with the series Melody of Life.
Since the beginning of my art research, my main story is a life story, story about an individual living in this society. Microcosm and Macrocosm. Diary of a person and at the same time a diary of the time in which this person is living. It is a mirror, a story, a construction, an interpretation, an interaction, an intellectual exercise… It is a composition which is always in movement, made of philosophy, poetry and experience seeking for an evolution, for a better life. I believe we learn to live throughout our lives; learning to live better and to understand better what our lives are all about. And this is my work, where my artworks are actually the results of my studies about life.
I find bricks as a symbol very interesting because of the ambiguity in the possibilities of interpretations that bricks can give us as a wall or as a construction. As a wall it could be seen also as an obstacle, like a barrier or sign of limit or separation in life. In this case we might see it as negative, but alternatively it can be seen as a construction and therefore more positive and creative. However, in case of representing the society, we people are all these bricks and together we create a wall or a construction. In this case we could ask ourselves how good and strong we are as bricks? In the case where these bricks represent a life of an individual person, they become moments in life of this person. And going back to the ambiguity of wall or a construction: in difficult times the together of bricks could be interpreted as a wall we have to climb, and in good times these bricks are a construction which we are creating through our experience of moments for our evolution.