CAPTURED Moments

Learning to Fly, by Spanish sculptors Coderch & Malavia, depicts a boy leaning forward, poised on tiptoe, confident that his dream of flying will be realized by his wings of corrugated cardboard, bamboo and rope that will carry him above the trees and the sea.

- JOHN O'HERN

Ironically, it’s the sea into which Icarus fell when he ignored his father’s warning not to fly close to the sun because it would melt his wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had designed the wings to escape the island of Crete where he and his son had been imprisoned by King Minos. Daedalus told Icarus to fly a middle route, away from the melting heat of the sun and the moisture of the sea, which would clog his wings. Icarus, thrilled by the sensation of flying, rose too close to the sun, the wax melted and he plunged to his death in the sea.

Coderch & Malavia’s intrepid potential airman is typical of their figures, depicted in a “captured moment.” He is full of youthful confidence that he will fly freely, escaping the restrictions of daily life. He knows the story of Icarus, but perhaps he has read the aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, who wrote, “I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things,” a sense of freedom even a young boy can feel.

In his enigmatic paintings, the Turkish artist Fatih Gurbuz explores the relationship of mind/body/spirit and nature/human/ animal. In Everything Will Be Beautiful, a young girl faces away from the viewer toward a halo that casts a blue light and her shadow on the ground. She stands between a bison and a hyena with doves flying above her head. It is an image of physical and mystical harmony. Gurbuz leaves us to read into the symbolism.