The Approach

Description

The Approach explores the shifting boundary between attraction, fear and perception. Drawing on Rose Marinelli’s experience of first meeting her former husband, the work also reflects a later period of psychosis in which she came to believe he was the devil. These two experiences converge in an image where memory and psychological distress transform an encounter into something charged with menace and uncertainty.

The composition unfolds within a grand interior saturated in deep crimson. A solitary female figure, seen from behind, stands facing a sharply defined male presence. Dressed formally and marked by a horned silhouette, he appears both elegant and threatening. The woman’s position places the viewer alongside her, looking towards a figure whose intentions and significance remain unresolved.

The red atmosphere intensifies the sense of emotional danger, while architectural details and a chandelier-like form suggest a space that is at once familiar and distorted. Subtle notes of blue and violet interrupt the dominant crimson, adding to the tension between what appears real and what has been transformed by perception.

For Marinelli, the work brings together two very different ways of seeing the same person. The memory of an initial meeting sits alongside a later experience in which psychosis altered her understanding of him, giving him a demonic significance. The horned figure embodies that frightening perception, representing how profoundly the mind can reshape a person or situation during a period of psychological distress.

The work is not a literal account of the encounter, but an exploration of how experience can change the meaning of a memory. An ordinary moment can acquire a different emotional weight when revisited through fear, uncertainty or a later crisis. The figure at the centre of the scene becomes both a presence from the past and a symbol of the disturbing beliefs that can emerge when perception becomes unsettled.

The title, The Approach, holds the viewer at the threshold of an encounter. There is a sense of movement towards something unknown, but also an unspoken question about whether to advance or retreat. Neither figure explains the situation, and the outcome remains suspended.

Through its dramatic colour, theatrical setting and unsettling symbolism, The Approach reflects on the fragile relationship between memory, belief and perception. It explores how an intimate history can become entangled with psychological distress, and how an encounter can take on a very different meaning when seen through the lens of a later experience.