“Man’s whole life is torment,
and we do not rest from our troubles,
and what is dearer than this life,
is hidden in the dark clouds.”
(Euripides: Hippolytus 189-197)
Gergő Ámmer’s work tries to speak of the dark cloud that looms in the gaze of the Medusa-head. A destructive gaze which, whatever the myths may say, cannot be neutralised by any artifice, shield or mirror. Wherever we turn our gaze, we cannot help but face the homeless, the fearless, our disappearance. We cannot help but fall into it, become a stone, a mere mask in its vision.
The Stranger that lurks behind the dark cloud, or more precisely, the dark cloud itself: all that we cannot control because we cannot understand it, because it is not human. It does not speak in our language, but whispers, murmurs or howls in a voice more ancient than our own. But what is ancient has not passed away, it still surrounds us with its silent witness: trees, grasses, animals, insects, stones, earth, water. Disappearing in the dark cloud of existence, we can become one with what has gone before us and with what surrounds us.
Being digested by the snake, we become its interior: its feeling, flesh and being, turning inward from the active outside-being, we can relax and transform ourselves in the breeding. We can begin our wanderings on an infinite path of metamorphosis.