Paulien De hornois
Belgium I 1999 I pauliendehornois@telenet.be
Marriage? To be honest, what do I know of it? I am only 23, I have never been in a long-term relationship, and my parents were already divorced by the time I was three. In matters of love and marriage, I insist that it is important not to pretend everything is always – as we say in Dutch – ‘rozengeur en maneschijn’ (the smell of roses and moonlight). This goes not only for marriage but for all aspects of life. Nobody has a flawless life – and there will always be things that don’t go as planned or as we might have wished. In the piece that I will make, titled ‘rozengeur en maneschijn’, I will portray a couple. My goal, however, is to create the immediate impression for the viewer that something is off. The illusion of rozengeur en maneschijn is palpable. What inspired me for this piece are the stories from my grandparents. In a time when marriage did not yet equal love and divorce was stigmatized, people often had no option but to just stick it out together, even if they couldn’t stand each other anymore. My goal with this piece is to convey the uncomfortable aspects of partnership. Unhappy marriages exist and are probably more common than we think. I believe that art can teach us to sit with this discomfort & hope my work will have this effect as well.
