Three Eyes




A satellite body of work within the broader constellation of the practice. Examining systems of cultural and biological inheritance through the symbolic language of the triptych.







Three Eyes
2022 -
Ceramic, photography, drawing, oil on canvas, acrylic on canvas

 Traditionally associated with religious painting, the triptych structure is reimagined here as a contemporary framework for examining the fragile continuity between land, body, and culture. Rather than depicting fertility alone, the works explore cycles of regeneration and loss that shape both ecological and human systems. Seeds, soil, and organic forms appear alongside layered images and sculptural interventions, suggesting the fragile mechanisms through which life, knowledge, and cultural memory are transmitted across generations. Each work merges painting, drawing, photography, and sculptural elements, allowing different materials and temporalities to coexist within a single structure. The “third eye” becomes a metaphor for expanded perception—an attempt to look beyond surface appearances and recognize the deeper systems that sustain life. Within the broader trajectory of the practice, Three Eyes extends the investigation of land systems into symbolic and cultural territory, where ecology, ritual, and inheritance intersect.


0
Prologue

A room becomes a womb—
soft walls of agricultural felt,
warm as breath,
quiet as soil before dawn.

Seeds hang like offerings,
small futures waiting to be taken,
carried outward
to wherever hands will open them.

Three benches form a circle,
ceramic fossils pressed into their skin—
a place to sit,
to listen,
to remember.

A voice begins in Chennai,
devotional, ascending.
Church bells answer from rural Italy,
their echoes braiding
with animals’ calls,
with the whisper of seeds,
with the low hum of fields at work.

The soundscape moves like prayer,
like labor,
like wind across a harvest—
melding sacred and earthly,
ritual and root,
body and ground.

Here, time slows.
Here, everything returns
to rhythm,
to warmth,
to origin.





I
Gau Mata


Analog photograph
Charcoal on paper
Digital photograph



Gau Mata,
stands in the field,
light spilling down her back
like a memory too pure to touch.

Her skin—silk,
but heavier than it looks.
She moves slowly,
aware of me
but loyal to the path ahead.

I feel her energy,
a low vibration through the dust—
full, steady,
the kind of power that doesn’t need
to announce itself.

For centuries she has walked like this:
through analog grain,
through charcoal smudge,
through digital glare.

Every age tries to name her.
Every hand draws the same curve
of spine and breath.

She is female,
holy,white.
She is milk and silence,
labor and light.

When she passes,
the air rearranges itself.
Even the shadows
stand still to listen.





White Cow 01
Digital photograph (archival pigment print)
60cm x 80cm



White Cow 02
Charcoal on paper 
120cm x 85cm 




White Cow 02
Analog photograph (gelatin silver print)
60cm x 80cm









II
Broccoli Meditation


Acrylic on canvas
Charcoal on paper
Light sculpture 


Alone, I sit and watch.
The air hums.
My mind wanders—
a monkey swinging from branch to branch,
restless in its hunger for elsewhere.

But sometimes it stops.
Breath slows.
A leaf trembles,
and the monkey becomes the tree.

To calm the mind:
broccoli, broccoli sprouts—
green minds of the earth.
Their quiet rise through the body
a small prayer against the fire
we call stress.

In their stillness,
I remember mine.




Broccoli 01
Stoneware glazed, with basket weaving elements and light components
30cm x 35cm x 75cm 



Monkey in the Forest
Acrylic on canvas with charcoal drawing
240cm x 210cm


Detail








III
The Search


Light sculpture 
Oil on canvas
Charcoal on paper


The monkey holds her baby—
instinct intact.
The elephant’s trunk stretches—
a question I haven’t answered
in six celibate years.

Work took the space
where a partner might have been.
Now I search
for the spark itself—
man or donor,
love or lab.

Leafy greens fill the fridge:
folate, iodine, faith.
Science calls it fertility support.
I call it prayer.

Between the monkey’s pouch
and the reaching trunk,
I stand—
a woman preparing
for a child who might arrive
through love, luck,
or a single cell choosing me.




Monkey Mother, and Baby
Oil on canvas
110cm x 150cm


Detail





       
Elephant Trunk and Foot
Charcoal on paper
180cm x 80cm 



Broccoli di Bassano
Stoneware, glazed
60cm x 110cm x 10cm




Broccoli di Bassano leaf
Stoneware, glazed
30cmx 58cm









IV
Artichokes


Acrylic on canvas
Charcoal on paper 
Light sculpture 



Like a child,
I stare down at my feet—
the floor a safer landscape
than faces.

Something about not belonging
makes me smaller.
Eye contact feels
like light too bright to hold.

So I look down—
at the shoes, the tiles,
the tiny scuff that says:
you exist, quietly.

I’ve done this for years.
Even now, grown,
the tilt of my head
returns me to that first silence—
a child’s view
of a room too tall.

Artichokes were my favorite then.
The slow ritual of peeling,
leaf by leaf,
toward the soft heart inside.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing—
learning how to arrive,
one layer at a time.






Temple Floor, Chennai
Acrylic on canvas and drawing
200cm 220cm 


Detail of drawing



Artichoke 01 
Stoneware glazed, with basket weaving, natural textiles and light components
40cm x 45cm x 90cm 





V
The Source




Oil on canvas
Acrylic on textule
Light sculpture


The source is slowly running out.
Not the energy—
that still returns,
like a tide I’ve learned to trust.

But the eggs.
The invisible clockwork
that once spun in silence,
now stuttering in its rhythm.

Water—
the first mother,
the shape of creation.
Without her, nothing.

And I can feel the tap
tightening,
its slow, deliberate closing—
a sound so soft
it breaks the heart.

Asparagus on the plate,
green spears of faith.
They say it helps—
a key vegetable
for conception.

So I eat,
as if chlorophyll
could rewrite time,
as if water,
just once more,
might turn itself back on.







Shower in Tamil Nadu
Oil on canvas
120cm x 170cm




Artichoke 01 
Stoneware glazed, with basket weaving, natural textiles and light components
40cm x 55cm x 93cm 




VI
Pumpkin Eating Tiger


Oil on canvas
Charcoal on paper 
Light sculpture 


The past, the present, the future—
I carry them all in one spine.

My past self keeps returning,
knocking on glass,
asking to be remembered.

The present looks straight at you,
steady and unsure,
already fading at the edges.

The future waits,
her foot stepped on
by the one who came before.

Beside me, a tiger glides—
my zodiac, my mirror—
moving the way I dream to:
confident, female, hungry.

Tigers eat pumpkins.
I imagine mine split open
in autumn fields,
soft orange moons
between her teeth.

Maybe time is this—
each self devouring the next,
and calling it grace.








Woman and Tiger 
Oil on canvas
150cm x 220cm


Detail


Detail




Woman Walking, Rajhastan 
Charcoal on paper
300cm x 120cm 


Detail





VII
 Dawn and Dusk

Light sculpture 
Oil on canvas
Light sculpture 


Celery hums in the ribs of the earth,
its pale bones drinking the dark water.
Kale spreads above it, rough and wise,
a skin of chlorophyll, breathing the sun’s patience.

Beneath the rafters of night,
the bat unfolds its soft geometry of sound—
listening to what roots remember,
mapping the invisible with heartbeat and echo.

Then the rooster ignites—
a flare of red and gold in the throat of morning,
calling the world back from its shadowed pulse,
shaking dew from the leaves of sleep.

And so the circle turns:
from celery’s vein to kale’s lung,
from bat’s ear to rooster’s cry—
one body of light and chlorophyll and sound,
breathing in rhythm with the earth.

Yin and Yang.
Dawn and Dusk.
The hush and the call.
The pulse between roots and sky.




Kale 01 
Stoneware glazed, with basket weaving, natural textiles and light components
40cm x 50cm x 120cm 



Celery 01 
Stoneware glazed, with basket weaving, natural textiles and light components
45cm x 50cm x 150cm 





Rooster and Bat
Oil on canvas
120cm x 170cm









VIII
 Holy Cow and the Peacock


Charcoal on paper
Oil on canvas
Light sculpture 


The holy cow—
mother, giver of milk,
still offering
even as the ground beneath her hardens.

Beside her,
the peacock stands—
its tail rising
like a slow, deliberate tree.

They share the same field,
though it is no longer whole.
Concrete veins
cut through the soil,
a quiet death
spoken in the language of renewal.

Once, fertility meant rain.
Now it means survival.
The cow holds patience—
the woman.
The peacock holds pride—
the man.

Here, the sacred persists—
not untouched,
but enduring,
a pulse beneath the surface
refusing to fall silent.




Holy Cow and Peacocks
Oil on canvas and concrete
360cm x 180cm 







IX
 Three Portraits


Charcoal on paper
Oil on canvas
Light sculpture 


Left
In pale ochre and muted ash,
I turn toward memory.
Light gathers on the cheekbone
like dust on old glass.
This gaze listens—
to what has spoken,
to echoes behind me.

Center
In iron reds and orange flame,
I meet the room head-on.
The air trembles.
Here, I am present—
a pulse of flesh and breath,
steady within the storm of looking.

Right
In blue and gold,
I look beyond.
Shadows lengthen into question marks.
This is the gaze of becoming—
of what is not yet formed,
of distance touched by light.

Together
Three colors, three directions—
a triangulation of being.
Left recalls,
Center inhabits,
Right imagines.

Between them,
I am subject and witness,
the body stretched across time.









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© Jenna Basso Pietrobon

France — Italy