Waiting 1995

Curator: Standing before us is "Waiting," a 1995 work by Petros Malayan. It seems to be rendered primarily in ink, perhaps with some charcoal elements too, focusing on the interior of a room. What's your immediate take? Editor: There's a profound sense of solitude. The monochromatic palette enhances this feeling, like a faded memory. She seems lost in thought, or perhaps suspended in time itself, with all her expectation placed elsewhere. What symbols might Malayan be evoking, if any? Curator: The window, of course, is a classical symbol of both confinement and freedom, expectation and frustration; a gateway to another state of being. And it bisects into equal and symmetrical divisions, an immediate suggestion of the union of opposites. Look at the vacant chair; an absent loved one? A visitor who has yet to arrive? Editor: And the very fact that it's a woman gazing outward carries its own weight. Throughout history, women have often been depicted in domestic interiors, their world visually framed and often restricted. Is this simply an observation of everyday life, or a critique of the limitations imposed on women? Her gaze transcends the familiar comfort. Curator: Perhaps both. I read that her act of waiting is not passive. By standing near this portal between inside and out, she holds the possibility of an emotional transformation within her very grasp. It's worth remembering that women standing by windows is a motif rooted in religious images like the Annunciation—a moment of transformative divine arrival. Editor: And while windows were often sites of feminine enclosure, the act of gazing out can be powerful in its defiance. This could reflect her conscious longing for connection, the conscious act of making a connection—to herself and to the broader world. This may even reflect a moment of choosing, actively, to face this threshold in her life. Curator: The artist presents us not with an answer but with the pregnant symbolism of her position. What’s striking to me is the intimacy the work evokes, despite the melancholic subject. It captures the universality of longing. Editor: For me, "Waiting" speaks volumes about the constraints and potentials of women in particular, caught at the precipice of a different future, as familiar and confining boundaries begin to melt away in this beautifully constructed world.