Eden au Pays des Mille et Une Nuits (170 x 170 cm) of Crystel Ceresa, a female Swiss artist, reminds me of a flower that only blooms at night - Jasmine. There is a certain degree of deep healing and fragile remembrance in this large-scale spray painting on canvas that has completely seized me the first time I saw it. The air of gentle femininity easily speaks to anyone who looks for a touch of magic. A graceful yet fascinating dialogue between feelings has occurred. I can’t help but complementing this painting with a female imaginative figure of my own: Jasmine Lady in Stardust.
Light and shadow wraps her in movement of delight. She walks out in stardust. She gazes at the moon and slightly strokes a jasmine. She comes up closer and carefully watches the flower during its hours of transformation. One petal at a time. Its vibrancy of vitality resonates with her heartbeat. She senses the summer breeze. She feels the romance: the spontaneity of going with the flow, of not predicting what lies ahead. Of living the moment and listening to the minutes passing by. Of being surreal and real at the same time. Of looking at something secret and forbidden. She is shy at her own presence. She thinks she is only by herself. Well, the fact is the bugs are looking at her; the wind is playing with her hair; the light is shining into her eyes. She is not alone. She is indeed among many others. Not people though. But in her own world. She steps into a mid-summer night of light heat and within the borderline of night and day. The shadow of the water mirrors onto the wall and she can hear that the water wants to talk. She doesn’t know how to decipher the unscripted text of water. The language of flower blossom draws her into a fantasy of a Baroque Vanitas story. It was the old time when she was raised among the ancient voices: the Greek roman and the primeval Italian. The deep-rooted inequality between male and female retreats with the uprising and descending of moon power. She was within the disproportion between extending love and being loved. She now gracefully accepts a new being of a Jasmine.
Being exposed to her soft side, seeing her own shadow on the leaves, showing her very transparency under the moon light, appears to be a tiny danger. For years, the garden has grown to completion. White roses are planted throughout and each of them is one page of her story. She has risen up from the fear of getting in touch with the bottom of desire and asks for the power of being a woman. She looks for the light and the shadow where the secret door of innate power lies. She breaks free of constrained forces and inserts a new world through a woman’s eyes. There is nothing more comforting and soothing than having a base of emotional intimacy for thought of romance and a fairy tale of femininity.
The fascinating feeling of being a woman gives wings to white jasmines. She decides to stay in the garden and explores the taste bud of earthly love. Dozens of doves flap wings through the garden. She is captivated by the grandeur of sensuous richness. She sways along with the tension of emotional exuberance. The vitality of countless movements of nature pulls her into a blurry territory of distinctive spatial and lighting patterns. She is back to life. She feels thirsty, just in time for morning dew dropping down from the fading moon and stardust.
If this was the garden of Eve or any pre-Rafaelite female figure, it would definitely smell Jasmine.
