Still: A Tribute to Jake Aikman and Alexandra Karakashian

Still holds a duality within it that defines the essence of this exhibition: it suggests immobility, the silence of a suspended instant, yet forcefully affirms continuity, an enduring presence in time. “Still” in this semantic space, between apparent quietude and obstinate survival, the practices of Jake Aikman and Alexandra Karakashian converge. For both, the artistic act becomes a form of radical resilience: a way to bear witness to what remains, to what resists the erosion of history and the force of the elements.

Alexandra Karakashian embodies a material and historical resilience. Her work, rooted in personal biography and the collective scars of the African continent, employs unstable and charged materials such as used engine oil and salt. Her painting is not merely representation, but a geological and political process: the oil staining the canvas evokes resource exploitation and ecological collapse, while the salt crystallizes mourning and the memory of exile. In Still, Karakashian’s resilience is that of memory refusing to be erased; it is a lament for lost lands and for those who have been “unhomed.” Her works are fragile yet persistent monuments to an instability that threatens, but does not fully prevail.

Parallel to this, Jake Aikman explores an atmospheric and spiritual resilience. Having abandoned the human figure, perceived as a narrative distraction, Aikman turns his gaze toward the immensity of liminal spaces and seascapes. Through a disciplined and restricted palette of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and sap green, the artist constructs visions of an austere and solemn beauty. His seas are not simple views, but powerful entities indifferent to human affairs. His painting captures ephemeral light and haze, suggesting that true resilience belongs to nature itself, capable of absorbing, submerging, and surviving. Still, for Aikman, is the apparent calm of water hiding unfathomable depths, an invitation to humble contemplation before the sublime.

Together, Karakashian and Aikman present two faces of resistance. One looks to the earth, the weight of matter, and human history; the other looks to the horizon, the water, and the natural infinite. In a frantic world, their works ask us to stop, be still, and recognize the silent strength of what, despite everything, remains.