Philipp Hölke

Art

Roses in the Abyss

A single rose, knotted in white and red over a block of black — the abyss it is thrown into. The painting takes Nietzsche at his word: thanks to the monster that did not manage to eat you alive.

A single white-and-red rose drawn in tangled, maze-like line over a heavy black field on white paper; its white stem is crossed by green thorn-marks, with hand-lettered white capitals beside it reading "Throw roses into the abyss."

A rose rendered as a knot — white line doubled in red, looping back on itself until the bloom reads as much like a labyrinth as a flower — laid over a single block of black. The black is the abyss named in the title: not a void to fall into but a ground to throw something beautiful at.

Throw roses into the abyss and say: here is my thanks to the monster that didn’t succeed in eating me alive. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The stem is barred with green, thorns or the marks of whatever tried to hold it back. The gesture is gratitude rather than triumph: the rose is given to the abyss, payment to the thing that failed to consume you, offered in its own colour.