Fifty years ago the1st Romani World Congress marked a prominent moment in the history of Romani, Sinti and Traveller people. It approved the international flag of the Romani people as the national emblem which strengthened their sense of identity.This was the time of the birth of a nation within Heaven and Earth and a force of perpetual movement.
In my allegoric aquarelle the red spoked wheel appears as a chakra in the form of an Ammonite fossil, which symbolises common ancestry that belongs to an earlier time. In ancient Greece it was the most holy stone for holding the ancient knowledge of Earth within it and for realising it as pure life-force energy. This relic offers great clarity, stimulates world survival instincts, and provides insight into one’s importance in the big picture of the universe. Gazing into its everlasting spiral can take you to the place where the oracle sees dreams and reads what the time manifests by prophecy. The primeval shell is shaped like a film reel of the passing time evoking an old movie atmosphere but in colours, hinting at the time when the archive of Roma heritage started. Red-coloured Ammonite is a unique piece in my painting: although it has never been found in real life, here the dominant scarlet is a metaphor of the passion and grief of the Roma, reminding the viewer of the Roma’s resistance and resilience in search for Romani existence. Delicate vitality flows through as pure mauve and alludes to the higher self among the hidden codes of spirituality. The story emerging from the fossil-as-film-reel metaphor encapsulates not only the past but also the future: it is permeated by powerful feminine attitudes, gaining their expression in the statuesque blue-grey figure and the dotted pattern of a flamenco dress, and it predicts the emancipation in our community and presents the revolution that is taking place in our culture.
Watercolour on paper
31×41 cm
2021
