the tale behind THE LOST CHILDREN show

I ‘m enchained by particular forceful archetypal symbols, and it is a forest for the series of works for my “the Lost Children” show.

It is dark in a forest, and you don’t see your way clearly, there are secrets and mysteries, and you can get lost easily. There are also sunlit meads to play in. Different creatures dwell in forest. Birdies, bunnies and butterflies stay in the alight places. The monsters, predators and witches lurk deep in the woods. But there are also wonderful secrets within the darkest places – forgotten castles, buried treasure and a virgin in need of salvage. Forest is a place where the boundaries between reality and fantasy become blurred, enabling intuitive perceptions and collective cognition, opening the unwitting, deepest part of our consciousness. The children are being taken over by this ‘forest’ every other hour, although we ask them to be neat tidy and lovely, wash of the dirt every day, sit calmly hands in lap, not to stain their trappings.

{some of my early spring forest feelings below}

Regarding the show title idea, there are a couple of external references.
One, more playful reference is the Neverland, the famous dwelling place of those who want to stay lost and remain immature forever, a place found in the head of those who are still children. It is not the same from one child to the next – one of them ‘had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it' while the other 'had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it’, 'John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents’. Etc.

The other reference is a French movie “City of the lost children”, about a mad man who kidnaps children to steal their dreams because he himself is incapable to dream. Visually arresting, bizarre, funny, illogical, beautiful, dark and sumptuous – it is a candy for eye and a decoy for soul. If you don’t know the movie – go see it!! It is possible that you will fall in love with it forever....