A selection of Mytro Patramani’s final project work from the Spring 2020 Art & Society course:
Orpheus and Eurydice
4 out of 9.
this poem is dedicated to Orpheus
Great love does not exist, even if poems speak of this
Once you lose someone you love, you try your best to let them go.
However, it is said
a snake broke a couple once again*
Faith was about to speak, but the Will of a human made a deal.
when you are happy and full of lust, Hades won’t stop you from taking one last glance.
You sing and sing and play the harp, and everybody cries because you are hurt.
So one last chance must be given,
even though death can’t be forgiven
the final scene takes place, at the doors of a hidden space.
1 2 3,
you turn to see
you fucked up everything and your love is free.
Go back to where you were, and write about what you heard.
Don’t be sad and don’t cry
Eurydice will be there when you die.
February 2020, I visited the gallery Gucci Garden in Florence. While I was going around admiring the clothing and the design of the gallery, I fell into a work of video art. It was called Gucci Stories: The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was about a boy and a girl, as most stories are. It was beautiful and I could not get it out of my head.
I was already aware of the myth, however the video did not follow exactly the storyline, the place or the actual characters as we know them from mythology. It was a version of the myth based on fashion. Since then, I’ve been thinking about this all the time―the way we can take a story, or a myth in this case, and use it so that it serves our own purposes.
Now in MY case, April 2020, I’m locked down inside a house because of COVID-19, like the rest of the world. So I thought I would make a “cover” of the myth based on my own view.
For some time now, I’ve been painting cats. Painting, engraving, sculpting. For no particular reason, to be honest. I just found them interesting, as an animal, a symbol and a form. As time passed, I can even say I’ve grown attached to them, even though I don’t, and never did, own an actual cat as a pet. Somehow, however, they ended up becoming vitally important to me.
I’m in the pleasant position of being locked down in a house with two cats now. For the first time the “cat” I’ve had in mind, and have been pursuing artistically all this time, is physically in front of me, and so it would be a shame if I did not take advantage of it and use it in my art, this time in a different form. The cats will be my actors. My Orpheus and my Eurydice! Giving me the chance to change my usual way of expressing my self, manually… in a more digital form. Let’s see how I will transform this story, through my eyes…
