Bone china is an ancient material containing the ashes of animal bones. In it, the bones of once living creatures have lost their original skeletal form and boundaries, and have become shapeless and boundless, mixed with other elements.
The state of the infinity of bones in bone china recalls the cosmology of the ancient philosopher Empedocles, according to which the creatures living on Earth today are the descendants of creatures that emerged from the complete mixture of the primordial elements under the intertwining influence of the unifying force of Love and the dividing force of Discord. According to Empedocles, from boundless state first emerged individual members and body parts, and from all possible combinations of these parts — strange creatures, most of which were unable to survive. The time when these creatures lived was called the Age of Monsters; it led to the appearance of modern animals.
The creation of bones from bone china is the transformation of the artist’s hand into a conduit for the forces of both Love and Strife: it allows the ancient skeletons of Empedocles’ monsters to emerge again from their boundless primordial state. The assembling of bones into a skeleton and their disassembling are the manifestation of one of the most primordial experiences of time: the awareness of the pulsation of the universe itself. The monsters are temporal because they are a fundamental part of Empedocles’ cosmological changes: they can be considered the first and most tragic product of the temporal nature of all that is.
The sculpture does not have the form of a single skeleton. It is only a set of bones that must be reassembled again and again by the author, so that the temporal monsters exist and disappear “in time”. In this way, the work returns the ashes of animal bones, once enclosed in the material of bone china, to the ancient cosmological cycle.
The reassemblable sculpture consists of 100 bones. The length and width of the skeleton varies from 150 to 350 cm, depending on the configuration of the assembly. The sculpture on display is assembled in sand.
