“Labay” (to throw, fleeting, to pass by)

Gray Matter

“In my personal art practice, I go through phases of frenzy, indifference, and barrenness,” says Golda King. Going through cycles of being filled to the brim with energy and inspiration, and just as quickly, being devoured by emptiness. During these periods of desolation, Golda finds that what helps her get her vigor back is to de-clutter, review, learn and re-learn. Reset. Unburden. Start anew.

For this series, Golda burned journals, sketches, and studies from March 2020 to June 2022—mulling the ashes to create her own pigments. “It is my way of de-cluttering, letting go, moving forward, mourning the heaviness of yesterday’s woes, and at the same time, making space to welcome new ideas, new energies, new freedoms, and new options. It was, by no means, an easy task to accomplish; it was essential.”

These paintings of blank pages and canvases are meant to memorialize the past, confront the present, and anticipate the future. “Completing this body of work - I feel-has increased the gray matter in my brain, at the same time, forced me out of my comfort zone, and has left me feeling exposed. In simplicity, there is no room to hide.”

Painting this series in grayscale represents indifference and isolation as gray bridges the gap between black and white. Black and white-the sum and absence of all colors, the absence and presence of light.

These paintings are representational portraits of the “In-between”- disconcerting, humbling, and exciting.