Page 5 of Monarch
I try not to dwell on the reasons why as I hop off my bike and lock it to the iron railings lining the bridge over the canal. I give myself two deep breaths to change my mind, to walk away from what I’m about to do, but I am not in the least bit surprised when I startmaking my way to the art gallery before the second exhale has left my body.
It’s not that I think Lex will be here. I’m almost certain xe won’t be. The last I heard through mutual friends, xe is still travelling, enjoying warmer weather and cheaper rent and likely several new lovers. Xe hasn’t posted anything on social media since we broke up, but that’s not new. I haven’t dared to call xir number to find out if I’m blocked. I imagine I am.
But I want to see xir art. This collection, especially. Xe worked on it while we were together. Xe spoke of it obsessively at times, and xe shared glimpses of it when xe was feeling generous or extra confident, or both. I want to come and see the butterflies.
I’m allowed to come and see the butterflies. I’m allowed to come and admire art that I feel I was a part of, albeit on the fringe, the sideline, the outside.
This gives me some confidence to hold my head up high as I step inside the gallery. It’s noticeably warmer inside, and the vast room glows with thoughtfully placed spotlights on the paintings that are on the first few walls. There are a handful of people further inside the space, and one of them breaks from the others and approaches me. Dressed all in black, with round tortoiseshell glasses and a tight, high bun that reminds me of a ballet dancer’s, the woman looks like the very cliché of an art gallery employee. I smile at her, and she holds out a hand.
“Marjolein Kuiper,” she says in Dutch. “I’m the gallery’s chief curator.”
“Oh, hi,” I stammer. “I’m Roos. And I’m just an art fan who was cycling by.”
Marjolein gives me an assessing look that teeters on the edge of being cold, but then she releases my hand and softens her stare with a smile. “Well, please, take a look around.”
She walks back to the group of people, who presumably are a more likely sale.
Maybe it’s what I’m wearing. My jeans haven’t been washed in weeks because I recently read you’re not supposed to wash denim, and my Converse have seen better days. She can’t see the sweatshirt under my wool jacket, so she can’t judge me on that. As soon as I think that, the heat inside makes me realise it would be nice to take a layer off, but then I would look even more like a scruff. And then I would probably, stupidly, explain my casual attire with the fact I work for a charity, and then she’d be even more suspicious of why I’m here.
I keep my jacket on, and I make my way deeper into the space. Once I pass the group of people, I see Lex’s collection. I see it, and I audibly gasp.
It’s huge. Taking up the space of two or three other paintings, it’s hard to take in the full width of the main piece. As I step back so I can try and do so, I see xir other accompanying pieces on the wall behind me. I glance at them quickly, smiling at their vague familiarity, but it’s the main piece that commands my attention.
Hundreds, possibly thousands of Monarch butterflies are scattered across a white canvas background. Each one is so intricate you could stare at it for hours and still find new details, but when you zoom out and see countless ones surrounding it, each one poised as if in mid-flight – wings at varying angles – the mind starts to spin.
I know Lex would know how many there are. I know Lex would show me the scars xe earned from making each and every one.
What makes it all the more remarkable is that each one is made from fabric. Discarded fabric. From materials that made fast fashion. Cottons and acrylics and polyesters and maybe even some wool that Lex found in fabric recycling centres. Material that xe saved from going to the global south, where it would be dumped.
The piece is called Migration.
“Did you know no other creature on this planet travels as far as the Monarch butterfly?” xe asked me on one of our first dates, if you could call them that. “And that they’re poisonous.”
I’d struggled to believe that. How could something so beautiful be so toxic?
“As caterpillars, they eat milkweed, which has a slightly poisonous sap, and that makes them taste bad for some predators, thus reducing the number of potential threats,” Lex had explained.
That had been one fact too far, but Lex was not stopping.
“That’s why they’re so brightly coloured. Their golden orange wings are a warning sign.”
I sigh to myself now, thinking of the irony of Lex, the most beautiful person I have ever seen, telling me this.
Xe was obsessed with Monarch butterflies for months, and this artwork stretching out before me, a blur of orange and black and white when I let my eyes lose focus for a moment, is a physical representation of that obsession.
Annoyingly, I love it. Just as I still love xem.
Not that xe deserves it, my love for xem or for xir art.
“It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Marjolein sidles up out of nowhere, taking me by surprise.
“It’s… Yes, it is.”
“It’s supposed to represent the journey of fast fashion. From the factories of the Global South, to our shops on the high street in Western nations, and then ultimately returning to Africa and Asia, where the materials – many of which are toxic – are dumped.”
I know,I want to scream.We talked about it for hours when we first fell in love.
“Very interesting,” I mumble instead.
