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In the Ninth Hour - A Parting

The Ninth Hour: 1

The Ninth Hour: 2

The Ninth Hour: 3

The Ninth Hour: 4

The Ninth Hour: 5

The Ninth Hour: 6

The Ninth Hour: 7-9

The Ninth Hour: 8, Middle Picture of Triptych

Through the cycle of paintings “In the Ninth Hour”, accompanied by her own poem “Abschied” (en: “Parting”), the artist took leave of her deceased father and processed her loss. The lonely backdrop of the lake reflects the emptiness of loss in most of the paintings.

News of her father´s death reached the artist on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland shortly after 3pm on an autumn day in 2019. In the Orthodox Church this time corresponds approximately to the daily hourly prayer at 3pm – the so-called “Ninth Hour” – which serves to commemorate the death of Jesus (the church day always begins on the previous evening, with the evening prayer, the “First Hour”). The cycle of farewell paintings was therefore figuratively called “In the Ninth Hour” and symbolically arranged on a total of nine canvases. Three of them were combined into a larger picture, a triptych.

Parting


Still unsuspecting,
in the ninth hour of the day,
Far far away I was
on the path to your soul,
one last time.

In the middle of the human hustle and bustle
resting within me,
in the briskness of the sunny autumn
of the ninth hour of the day,
I slipped
on the white ship
over the great lake of the four forests
to the place where Scriabin once breathed.

One more station,
in the ninth hour of the day,
in a place in the middle of nowhere
in the lofty mountains,
where suddenly a void flashed in me,
in their silence,
yet unbeknownst to me,
your soul for the first time
passed away.

And on the way back
In the place where Scriabin once breathed,
I got out after all,
as if guided by an unseen thread,
in the ninth hour of the day,
along the road
where St. Jerome comforted
and to me the voice of my sister,
spoke under the great treetop,
that your soul is now elsewhere.

To say goodbye we met again
On the green, blue lake of the four forests.
Hugging my soul
you say goodbye fluttering,
with white wings and mild eyes
for eternity.

Gliding on the white ship
cried the inconsolable little child inside me.

(Avramović, 2020; Translation from German into English: Dr. Daniela G. Fountain, 2021)

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