Flying Blue 

Editor: This fantastical painting, “Flying Blue,” by Yoko d’Holbachie, immediately brings to mind a strange dream, vibrant and slightly unsettling. All these organic shapes, like something out of a biology textbook turned sideways! What symbols do you notice here? Curator: I am drawn to the figure's form: the biomorphic construction rising totem-like from the landscape. Do you see how the artist arranges disparate forms to create a single being? There’s a cumulative power in its otherness, isn't there? We respond viscerally because, perhaps subconsciously, it echoes primordial representations of deities or spirits constructed from what is known, safe, natural. Editor: That's interesting. Like a subconscious memory? The stacked arrangement also reminds me of, like, a carnival performer balancing objects. It seems so carefully arranged! Curator: Precisely! The image resonates, playing upon cultural memory. Consider the recurring eye motif—on the wing, in the "mask." Throughout history, cultures have imbued the eye with protective powers or perceived it as a window into the soul. Here, do they suggest vulnerability or perhaps vigilance? Editor: Vigilance, maybe. The overall image does have a sense of watchfulness to it. It’s not menacing, but observant. The butterfly wings add a lightness that’s so different from the heavier base. Curator: A beautiful juxtaposition. Butterfly wings as symbols of transformation, the earthbound rootedness of the base – a symbolic narrative of aspiration and groundedness coexisting. Do you see this relationship represented anywhere else? Editor: Looking at it that way, the “flowers” or seed pods in the background point upwards, while the trunks remain underground, out of sight. The more I examine it, the more layers I notice! Curator: Exactly! And consider how future viewers will add their interpretations! The image carries the past and anticipates future echoes of meaning. It changes with each of us.