Life and Death of a Hand

Life and Death of a Hand is a graphic series that evokes the flow of life and its continuous process of transformation. It consists of 14 drawings, and each drawing is accompanied by a title word. These are, in order: Condensation – Eclosion – Emergence – Frenzy – Constriction – Overflow – Tearing – Unfolding – Uprooting – Introspection – Communion – Plenitude – Renunciation – Death.

The hand evokes the possibility of doing. In a large number of creation myths, a deity models the world or human beings with his/her own hands. We can see in many Romanesque images a hand emerging from the upper frame, as an evocation of the Christian God who does and undoes according to his will. The hands of Yahweh are in fact connoted with this double aspect: in the Gnostic texts (Jung, OC9/2, 2011), Yahweh’s right hand is the kind hand that protects and grants abundance while his left hand is the terrible hand, which must be feared. This dark aspect of the divine hand—which evokes the destructive power of the unconscious—has been an inspiration for many of the preparatory drawings for this series.

Vandendorpe, November 2017