在煙與塵之間，隱藏著一個令人難以捉摸的世界。這個世界充滿了矛盾和對比，既有明亮的光芒，又有黑暗的角落。透過仔細的觀察和深入的探索，我們可以發現這個世界的真諦，了解其中的奧秘。讓我們一起踏上這段探索之旅，揭開煙與塵之間的神祕面紗，發現其中蘊藏的無盡奧義。

煙與塵之間：阿爾瓦 ‧ 梅納個展

創作自述∣

文 / 阿爾瓦 · 梅納

你來自塵土，最終也將回歸塵土。在這之間，似乎抽煙並是個壞選擇。

這組作品是我在過去兩年裡逐漸形成的觀念與形式的凝聚，背景涉及宗教圖像，並在一定程度上基於經典文獻。有時，宗教成為作品的表象，開啟敘事的序章。儘管這些敘事圍繞著宗教主題，但其核心意圖是解構教條主義與道德框架，並將這些看作人類之外的概念（如創造者上帝），試圖通過混合、共生、文化殖民及我們當代特有的扭曲來實現。矛盾的是，這結果反而呈現了人類完全被其文化所制約的形象，並且這種文化無法真正逃離，因為即使嘗試擺脫，這本身也是文化框架的一部分。

在這場文化人類學的普遍遊戲中，唯一的任務就是通過符號學的視角，運用象徵手法來創造當代圖像。這個幾乎有機的過程，以及時而更具塑造感、時而更插畫化的繪畫語言，是我用來探討我關注問題的方式。我堅信，藝術應對當代負責，同時保持其遊戲性。藝術不僅僅是一種哲學工具，也應該具備娛樂性，而非陷入說教的窠臼——它應如俳句或短詩般精練。

我喜歡想像，若干年後某人看到這些作品中的某一件，會面對一種完全錯位的資訊，因為它們並非新聞紀錄，而是發自內心的吶喊，探討的是結構、混合，以及對生活和我們所接受的社會文化建構的誤解。而這些建構，僅僅是為了填補那使我們除塵土外一無所有的虛無感。

BETWEEN SMOKE AND DUST：ALVAR MENA SOLO EXHIBITION

-Between smoke and dust lies an elusive world, filled with contradictions and contrasts—both radiant light and shadowed corners. Through careful observation and deep exploration, we can uncover the true essence of this world and understand its mysteries. Let us embark on this journey together, unveiling the enigmatic veil between smoke and dust and discovering the endless meaning hidden within.

You are dust, and to dust you shall return. In the meantime, smoking doesn’t seem like such a bad option.

In this group of works, several concepts and forms that I have been developing over the past two years converge. With religious iconography, more or less apocryphal, as a backdrop and sometimes also as a surface, a narrative unfolds that, while using religion as a guiding thread, seeks to dismantle dogmatism and the moral structure as something external to the human (the idea of a creator God) through mixing, symbiosis, cultural colonization, and the distortion characteristic of our time. Paradoxically, this results in the creation of a sort of recurring characters in the work, thereby supporting the idea of a human fully conditioned by their culture—a culture from which it is impossible to emancipate oneself, as the very act of escape would be a product of the cultural framework itself.

With this accepted anthropological play, all that remains is to utilize the ways of shaping symbols (on a semiotic level) to create an imagery that speaks of the contemporary. Through this almost organic process and a series of pictorial languages that are sometimes more plastic and at other times more illustrative, I have tried to address, ultimately, the issues that concern me. I believe in art that is committed to the contemporary and does not lose sight of its playful character; art that functions as a philosophical tool but also entertains, without the need to fall into proselytism—a sort of haiku or brief poetry.

I like to imagine that if someone were to see one of these pieces in a thousand years, they would be faced with complete misinformation, in the sense that it is not a journalistic chronicle; on the contrary, it is a visceral scream that speaks of structure, mixing, and the total misunderstanding of life and the sociocultural constructs that we have accepted solely to fill the void that leaves us meaning nothing more than a speck of dust.                                                                                    —  Alvar Mena

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