“The Persistence of Going Straight Ahead” 2024

Description

The “Persistence of Going Straight Ahead” (named after Dali’s icon “The Persistence of Memory”, of which the painting makes a small appropriation) is a painting about never giving up. The image of a car in the middle of the Australian desert was initially inspired by a chance moment during a road trip the artist undertook. Driving days through the desert, the artist decided to stop the car and go for a walk. Looking back at the car with its door still open as if inviting in the viewer, the artist found a perfect symbol for life’s journey. In life we get sidetracked, we get lost, we head backwards, but the car on a single-directed road through the desert symbolises the perseverance of pushing onwards with the true purpose of one’s life journey. Whereas Dali symbolises the endlessness of time and memory with his melting clocks, Sesto incorporates the image to symbolise the perceived endlessness of the journey. Two circular abstractions in the piece centre on “time” and the “horizon”.