Heureux Ici, Pourquoi Partir (Happy here, Why Leave?)

Heureux Ici, Pourquoi Partir?

(Happy Here, Why Leave?)

The exhibition is a unique opportunity to explore and understand the artistic process- the journey from the subconscious to a final piece hanging on the wall.

Panca Evenblij works with and through the space around her. She is sensitive to the details and the feelings they evoke. Through her work she seeks to find her own place in her surroundings and encourage us to observe the details of our own lives.

Panca begins with an idea, an image, a memory and builds a frame (not always literal) around it to define it, perhaps to explain existence. Within this frame it changes, becomes something new- requiring a new frame, a new context. She creates distance as she removes herself further and further, applying frame after frame. As outsiders we can look through to the origin and view all its stages of evolution.

Java Gallery is the frame within which Panca will compose, alter and redefine her work for the duration of the exhibition. We will see blank canvases become filled, walls overtaken then abandoned- images appear then disappear as Panca explores her own sensibilities and invites us into her space.

Dana Langlois

Java Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2007 

Arriving in new surroundings without knowing the customs or the images. Not being part of the collective memory. The only references are within oneself, one’s past and thoughts, still disconnected from the new environment.

Bit by bit, through observing, sketching and painting, a new reality is explored. Slowly zooming in provokes new aesthetic experiences.Images become more autonomous, assured and recognizable as much as alienated.Things come together. Personal associations are shaped. This is what I know, this is where I want to be.But when understanding, recognition and safety seem attained, meanings escape again. Nothing is what it seems. The search has only just started.

Time to move on? Heureux ici, pourquoi partir?

Panca Evenblij