© Samuel Duarte
getting back is the action of returning to a subject, to a place, an activity, to call someone back. Followed by the preposition at, it could even refer to revenge — giving like for like.
A long tendinitis led me to explore different gestures. Being mad at my right hand, I began painting black rectangles with my left hand. Struggling with daily stuff revealed a vulnerability that had been buried beneath an exaggerated sense of independence and autonomy. The innocence of my left hand reminded my brain of the feeling of acquiring dexterity in childhood.
As my right hand recovered, magazine cutouts began to fill the black rectangles, standing out against their darkness. Being mad at my right hand, I got back to doing what I do best, in an almost automatic way.
The exhaustive repetition of these gestures led me, first unintentionally and then out of a desire to dry this source out, to revisit feelings that had long been muffled. (I had no idea I carried this inside me.)
The exhaustive repetition of these gestures led me, first unintentionally and then out of a desire to dry this source out, to focus on memories which I identified as ‘bugs’ in my childhood and in the two adolescences I had.
The exhaustive repetition of these gestures led me, first unintentionally and then out of a desire to dry this source out, led me to give shape to specific, more or less confusing memories; to return to childhood, to think about aging, to relive relationships and solitudes.