Transitory: A Study of Human Anatomy & Our Own Impermanence
Join us for an opening reception at the gallery
“This is temporary,” are three words I have often uttered to sooth my own anxiety. It’s a reminder that’s been like balm on a wound in times of trauma, transition, heartbreak, and uncertainty. Repeated to condition my brain into remembering: no matter the situation I am in, someday it will end. With this realization comes comfort; knowing anything that brings me pain is only temporary. But with that comfort comes the reminder that just like the pain, I am also temporary.
Though we of course all know this on some level, I believe most of us prefer to ignore it. The knowledge of our own impermanence can be incredibly disconcerting to think about. I also believe it is a fact best acknowledged and accepted. There’s no changing it, there’s no escaping it. Everyone and everything that is alive now, someday will not be. The nature of all life is transitory.
I have always been fascinated by the intricacies of human and animal anatomy. Skeletal systems, in particular, are endlessly captivating and inspiring. They are structures that enable our physical bodies to move about the world, complete all the tasks we need to survive, and they are also the last part of our bodies to decay; left behind after the rest of us has decomposed. I find beauty in this juxtaposition: our skeletons serve us our entire lives, assisting in the functions of our bodies, and yet the sight of them implies death. At the point that they become visible, they are simply remains of a being that was temporarily living.
In this collection of work, a surrealist approach to depicting these physical remnants serves as a vessel for presenting the subject of death to the viewer in a way that is new, unexpected, and at times disconcerting. We live in a world surrounded by daily reminders of death, whether seen in imagery of skulls and bones, dead animals on the road, passing by graveyards on daily commutes, or mentions of people who have passed. However, these reminders so rarely access the part of our mind that possesses the knowledge of our own death. The artworks in this collection insert these reminders into settings that prohibit them from being ignored or overlooked. The viewer must stop to consider these symbols of death and their meanings, the connection they have to their surroundings, and to the viewer’s own experience.
As a culture we are so submerged in the day to day that we rarely remember that it is all temporary. With this collection of artworks I aim to break through that superficial exterior to draw out in the viewer’s mind the knowledge of their own temporality. My work reminds the viewer of the physicality of our bodies, the fleeting nature of life, and ultimately points to the inescapable fact that we are all impermanent.
Featured Artists
This exhibit is sponsored in part by:
Introducing our 2023 Holiday Artists:
About The Artist
Thiago Porraz is a trans, queer, latino artist living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He began his artistic education with two years of courses at Michigan State University and a semester at Kendall College of Art and Design, then ultimately decided to continue building his artistic skills as a self-taught artist. While he enjoys drawing in pencil, charcoal, and ink, his foremost passion is acrylic painting. Much of his work gravitates toward themes of death, nature, decay, surrealism, and the physical remnants of our bodies after we've left them behind. He is endlessly inspired by the intricacies of the human anatomy, inside and out.
