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Like anyone else who has experienced death of a loved one, I have considered the relationship of life and death, and the fulfillment of one's potential. What is mortality? Is having lived enough? Is death really the end? My recent research of symbols, their origins and meanings in conjunction with my reading of Jung's ideas on symbols and archetypes (memories and images shared by all humans) has led to my response and interpretation of these ideas. Imagination and intuition are vital to understanding, as symbols express concepts in the language of nature.
Ancient societies (as far back as 10,000 BC) were concerned with the creation of life, and the process of death and regeneration; their symbols and images had to do with these basic functions. At the apex of their triangle was the Earth Mother, who was the Fertility Goddess: the single source of life who took her energy from the springs and wells, from the sun and moon and the moist earth. As I did not want to rely on the obvious ability of the female form to convey creative/regenerative energy, I have deliberately omitted figurative representation. Examples of symbols that were used include the spiral, snake, triangle, and waves of water. I did not use white and black in our usual western interpretation of life and death: here, black is symbolic not of death, but of life: the colour of rich fertile earth. White is the colour of death: the colour of bones.
The works are very conceptual and abstract. They were the result of a process of automatic mark making, that is, no preconceived idea of what the painting would look like as a finished product. I focused on specific symbols to do with specific ideas (for example, the triangle and the egg in "birth"), and created a pattern on each work which would contain nucleus of the work's meaning. I used the painting and drawing as a means of discovery and synthesis rather than one of representation. While I am mainly a figurative artist, I have always been aware of the ability of things in the physical world to be symbols for the subconscious or spiritual realm.
As I was titling each work and because our written language is made up of visual symbols, I saw a correlation between these ancient symbols and our system of handwriting/communication (the symbol of waves of water, M, "mu" is water in Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as in Greek). The title of each is written in the languages which influenced English. It is really quite interesting to see how a word can occur in each with minimal spelling changes - almost as if the concept transferred intact - examples such as "social", "energy", "regeneration" and "magnetism". What is it about these specific words that their core has transferred across linguistic barriers?
The paintings are exhibited in a hallway, reminiscent of ancient tombs with their long passages. I felt this was appropriate for a person travels down the corridor and back again; their journey symbolic of the cycle of life.
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