The sand pieces feature a stark economy of colours, broken up by the use of atmospheric dust and a multitude of glass fragments scattered throughout. The painting, conceived as an indivisible whole, now displaces real space to embark on a new journey towards its own autonomy. The phenomenological nature of these works harbours questions related to sight, perception, and touch. The traces of brushes dragging colour across the surface are clearly visible, as are those of fingers scratching the paint, achieving more than just effects, but an atmosphere, a material sensation. With bright, iridescent reflections, the blackish material is arranged on a rough surface full of particles of sand and coloured glasses, leading this new painting to encompass a larger set of operations. And it is not so much sand excavated and extracted from the earth as another, more mysterious kind which, in the artist’s words, floats and falls.

Considering that time passed is really no time.

At once moving and at rest.

At once another point and the absolute

centre     from which all motion sets pace,

in the way that one point turning sets all other

points turning. In the way that one motion

sets the universe in motion, and the in and out

breath of the wind    here     is one

with the gestural breath.

The pigment meets the canvas’s inertia and

is forever set still     or so it seems.

The apparent stillness of the whole

expresses    a potential motion. All that can

move   moves at once.

And purple, rising as particulate matter,

breaks the surface of the canvas as does yellow,

which sprays southwards and fades,

as blue springs from orange, as space from

a single point, and noise from silence.

And with this train of opposites time becomes

the mirror of eternity, and all that is real,

unreal.

The canvas. Yes.     Bodied and unbodied.

Harbours the effect of waves of thought

rippled, fingers running through the surface,

the water’s embrace.

As bodies of water, embraced by earth,

learn to be still.

And the slow and heavy forces press stone

into smoothness and clarity. The resulting

shatters of glass make their movements.

Matter moves through the thickness of space.

Because it all moves, like the smoke of our

existence left behind after all our trying.

Which might leave a useful pattern for those

coming after us in its whirling. Of particles

that dance and touch the mind which

takes on the dance.

The Movements, Vanessa Onwuemezi, in Thilo Heinzmann, published by Scheidegger and Spiess, 2025