Arachnid Afternoon (with laundry), 2025
Etching on Fabriano, Edition 2 of 7
37,5 cm x 33 cm
Artist’s Statement
Arachnid Afternoon (with Laundry) shows a scorpion-like figure engaged in the ordinary domestic act of hanging up washing in a vast open landscape. A mundane task is performed by a creature that feels out of place in everyday life.
The significance of the scorpion lies in its classification as an arachnid. An arachnid is a strange category of creature in itself as it is not an insect, nor a reptile, but something distinct that sits outside these familiar groupings. This in-between position reflects the work’s exploration into ambiguity, instability, and things that resist fixed meaning.
The scorpion also carries an internal tension. It is a creature that tends to hide, withdrawing into concealment, yet it also has a stinger which demonstrates an ability to defend or strike. This creates a push and pull between vulnerability and protection, silence and action, and the uncertainty of how much of the self is revealed or withheld.
This work explores meaning-making in everyday life. It considers how even routine actions are shaped by the need to construct meaning, and how that process can become overwhelming. The pressure to define ourselves, our actions, or our purpose can begin to distort the simplicity of daily life, turning the ordinary into something heavier or more uncertain.
Despite its strangeness, the image remains grounded in the space of everyday tasks. The scorpion is still simply hanging up laundry. The familiar and the uncanny aspects of this work holds a space where uncertainty is not being resisted but lived with.
