Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Ö,Erdöben, The Wild Within

I have an exhibition coming up! This one has been many months in the making and many, many more in the mind!

Join me for a drink on Saturday November 29 at Manyung Gallery, Mount Eliza.



“We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the shadow of Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph. D
Women Who Run With the Wolves

This body of work is the amalgamation of inspiration drawn from the written work of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, personal experience and the resilience of many female creatures of the animal kingdom.

Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run with the Wolves talks about the female psyche by way of folk tales and draws on the inner animal we all possess. This inner animal - the wild within – enables the heroines in these traditional folk tales to emerge victorious on the other side of disaster, danger or despair.

The creative process of this work involves the meticulous and repetitious action of dotting the paper with tiny ink dots, a process which serves as a meditation of sorts, a time to harness the wild within. My technique echoes the patience and persistence required by the female creatures my subjects represent. I use these methods to convey a sense of gentle strength in my subjects who subtly hint at a deeper truth.