Fill the Void 

Editor: This drawing, “Fill the Void” by Cassidy Rae Marietta, combines drawing and acrylic paint with a riot of psychedelia and pattern. It’s incredibly dense! What do you see when you look at this image? Curator: It's interesting how the artist combines the figure, almost classical in its positioning, with this explosion of post-internet psychedelic imagery. Notice how the human form is almost being swallowed or consumed by the surrounding ornamentation. The deer skull seems to speak to transformation, doesn’t it? A visual meditation on filling voids, as the title suggests, maybe through experience and imagery? Editor: Yes! The title makes me think of a search for meaning, and maybe that meaning is being overwhelmed by... stuff. How does the art connect with cultural memory and continuity? Curator: Well, skulls are loaded with meaning, going back centuries in art. They frequently signify mortality, vanity, but also resilience. The surrounding ornamentation is like a modern form of visual noise – a kind of digital baroque – mirroring our contemporary information overload. What is remembered when there is such density of imagery? What do we filter out, and what do we retain? Editor: It’s as if the traditional symbol of the skull is battling it out with all the information competing for our attention, a new kind of memento mori for the digital age. It makes the simple heart on the figure's back seem almost poignant. Curator: Exactly! It offers a stark contrast. Do you think the "void" in the title refers to the space that something like true, unadulterated feeling once occupied? It invites us to examine the images we choose to fill that space. Editor: I hadn’t thought of it that way. It gives me a lot to think about! Thanks! Curator: A pleasure! Art helps us to recognize that memory persists through cultural symbols, adapting across eras and technology.