Irreparabile Tempus(*)
(on the impossibility of reversing time and decline)
In this diptych, the aged bark of a tree transforms into flesh to enact the very concept of tempus fugit—time’s flight.
In a visceral autopsy of existence, the upper image petrifies the mind into a face contorted in agony, while the lower image shows a pair of worn-out legs buckling under the weight of gravity.
Enveloped in the pitch-black darkness of a tenebrism inherited from the Baroque, the work strips away our illusions of eternity and returns us to the state of a still life: fragile matter that cracks, dries, and dissolves into the oblivion of the earth.
(*) Classical origin: The phrase first appeared in the poem Georgics (Book III, line 284) by the Roman poet Virgil, in its full form: “Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus” (“But meanwhile, time flees—irreparably, time flees”).
Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC – 19 BC) was one of the greatest poets of Ancient Rome, a leading figure in Latin literature during the reign of the Emperor Augustus.
