Ouroboros—Emanuel Ribas

Emanuel Ribas’ work is procedural, layered, and expressive in nature and in many ways a reflection of himself. Rather than communicating with words, or using some kind of visual narrative to illustrate a story or moment in time, he’s driven by an innate desire to use materials that are often seen in the home and workplace. These materials, when taken apart and manipulated over a period of time, are then combined to create an assemblage that encompasses various elements of his history, identity, and psychology.

For the project gallery at Dimensions Variable (DV), Ribas will explore the idea that the beginning and end—to something, to someone—can be one and the same. Very similarly, his process of material exploration has no endpoint and no beginning. Like the period at the end of a sentence both conclude a statement and connect to the other sentences in a paragraph, the artwork in its “final” state represents both the conclusion of a process and an invitation to whatever comes next—the beginning of something else. So, when confronted with the possibilities of what is deemed the beginning or end we should look at it in the form of a continuous cycle, an ouroboros.