Alakananda (Alka) Mukerji<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flows the Dawn
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it did for many, COVID descended on my soul like a long, dark night.\u00a0 There was so
much unknown; so much fear, anxiety, and confusion.\u00a0 Then there was the unending
solitude: the desolate disconnection \u2014 from my students and colleagues, from my
friends and family, and from life itself, or, at least, so it seemed.\u00a0 Everywhere, there was
the inescapable sense of loss \u2014 societal loss, cultural loss, and personal loss: a pall
that hung over everything and everyone and which, at times, no light of hope seemed
able to penetrate.
But then, after the long, dark night, a new day finally came.\u00a0
If you have sat in the still and silence of the very early morning, you know that daybreak
is not really a breaking at all.\u00a0 Breaking implies a suddenness, as if the new day arrives
all at once.\u00a0 It does not.\u00a0 It is slower and subtler, like a gentle incoming tide.\u00a0 So flows
the dawn.\u00a0 At first, out of the darkness, there are hints of barely perceptible greys \u2014
different tones; different shades.\u00a0 Then come the colors, layer upon layer, bringing
meaning and texture to the world: dim and unsure at first \u2014 almost not there \u2014 but
moment by moment, becoming more vibrant, more real, more alive.
So was the emergence from COVID. \u00a0
\u201cFlows the Dawn\u201d captures this slow and steady resurrection, and my personal
struggles as I emerged from a night that took so long to pass.\u00a0 It is expressionistic; it is
darkness and light; it is touch-and-go.\u00a0 My work speaks with all the vocabulary of
morning.\u00a0 It tells of change, of reinvolvement, of new conversations. It is an invitation to
interaction.\u00a0 After all the apartness, interaction can no longer be denied.
Even in content and media, the scope of my work for \u201cFlows the Dawn\u201d is tremulous and
unsettled, featuring tapestry, printmaking, and paintings made with blended acrylics and
watercolors and oils \u2014 choosing only one form of paint seemed presumptuous and
inappropriate for the mood of the moment.\u00a0 The work presents itself as fluid, at times
hinting at directness, but in reality, awash in auroral subtlety and moving lightly from
form to form and emotion to emotion.\u00a0
Like the diverse techniques and processes I used to create the pieces, there are many
layers and inter weavings in each: the traditional and cultural with the unorthodox and
the unexpected; the global and societal with the private and intimate; the obvious and
straight forward with the hidden and mysterious \u2014 in other words, the textures of who
and where I was and who and where I am now \u2014 tinged, of course, with the anticipation
of who and where I will be.
Conceived in despair, but ultimately born in hope, this new show, pulled together from
what was available to me, both emotionally and materially, represents the changes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
which I \u2014 which all of us \u2014 have undergone during the long, dark night, and the
perseverance which has brought us all to the here-and-now, ready to stand with the
light of a new day in our eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"