Remembrance

A wounded body has emerged from the earth. A woman was injured long ago, and she has lain in the cradle of the Mother ever since. For a time almost infinite, she has been remembering - the good things and the bad, the joys and the hurts. But most of all, she has had the time to understand, to forgive, and to see so deeply with her buried body that there is nothing left to forgive. She wears her scars well.

Although the woman represented in Andrej Mitevski's torso is missing parts of her body, this ancient form is whole as it is. Grace now flows through her former wounds. Out of disfigurement, beauty is born - a timeless beauty.

Now that she has been returned into the sunlight, she rises in the grace of one beyond hurt. Her wounds have become her ornaments. She bestows the blessing of remembrance - of things past that resurrect into graceful forms, beyond good and evil.

She is the shape of a woman who has re-emerged transformed. She has not been resurrected, as resurrection implies the death of the old self. Nor has she burned in flames like a phoenix to rise from the ashes. She is not a newborn without a past. Instead, she has become anew from her old self, re-shaping her past to become a statue of radiance - a remembrance of things past whose spirit now radiates through the stone.

In his sculpture Remembrance, Mitevski has masterfully incorporated the natural abrasions, rough edges, and sediments in the torso, leaving them intact. He has not tried to “fix” the form into superficially smooth surfaces. The sculptor’s decision not to interfere with the natural “wounds” of the stone perhaps stem from his ability to see – and to help us see – where truer beauty comes from.

“This is what will become of us one day,” says Andrej, pointing at the sculpture.

Remembrance reminds us that the timeless soul outlasts temporal hurt. Moreover, the soul grows through transformations of old lives. Ancient forms of our past selves may lie beneath the earth, waiting for their time to re-emerge. If found, if remembered, the past can be reshaped into a pillar of the present, becoming a quiet beacon of grace.