Bye for good?

Based on Untitled (2021) by Ivie Isibor.
For “Words & Images: How to be both”, at the Volkstheater, in Vienna.
Co-curated with Nick Romeo Reimann.

This was our last good-bye.
Trying to hold onto something we’ve long for.
So how can this be good?

I read the final words of these lines:
Bye for good?
I guess the answer to this question is still pending,
while I hope for no ending.

I look at this picture and I am moved,
just like the brushstrokes that paint
the figure on the left,
the one that was indeed left.
Painted pain.

The two people hugging each other contrast in their texture.
One becomes a memento of the movement of the brush:
wavy, going with the flow, airy,
yet, still bound by the envelop of their body.
The other is more granulated, fixed in time, earthy.
Earth meets air.
“Let me be earthbound; starfixed” I read
on one of the artist’s posts showing the painting
surrounded by other artworks.
Earthbound meets starfixed.

Now I understand.
Even though I wish you were earthbound
and therefore unable to fly away from me,
you’re just like a fixed star:
“A star so distant that its motion can be measured only
by very precise observation over long periods.”

In order for me to appreciate the light that emanates from you,
and know what your next destination will be,
I need to watch you from afar;
hoping that one day,
you’ll land again in my arms.

© Michael Almeida Machado

Image
Ivie Isibor, Untitled, 2021. (Found on the artist’s Instagram page: @ivie.isi)

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