Juniper

2024

Irina is naturally prone to introspection and melancholy, that she considers catalytic and that she uses as instruments into her pursuit and subjects.

She stirs into her personal universe, that she comes back to again and again. She considers it inexhaustible, revealing it each time, in an almost exhibitionistic manner. Restored out of memories and objects from a personal archive, each work of this series is a tribute to someone dear, to a state of being, to loss, absence, death and life after death.

Juniper is a plant that modifies its shape and appearance based on water and geographical area. It is also the symbol of healing and reintegration.

This series brings back into the present some of the beings that have been shaping the artist, beings that have shaped her through presence and absence. She honours the relation between life and death, and of life after death.

“And something happens, something that will live in you afterwards. What I found out, which was very positive, is that you're accompanied for a very long time by your dead friends and dead loves, which I'd never had before. It's been the most amazing companionship. Eventually you feel them go... Then it's about getting back into the land of the living. It is just that. I do know, now, about grieving." - Charlotte Rampling