Wednesday 26 February 2014

Early Dream Monoprints
















These mono-prints were made in Oxford in my early twenties and are possibly some of my earliest attempts at trying to bring up images from my unconscious dreaming mind. I have not shown them to anyone since the time of making, over 15 years ago. The process of working with dreams is still very much part of my practice. I feel that I am endlessly scratching the surface of a subterranean night time world. I am currently seeking a residency in Berlin where I will immerse myself more fully in this practice in order to create new work, find fellow dream practitioners and build on my twenty years of dream research.   

I have written more about my exploration of dreams here, http://vibrationsartjournal.com/2014/01/29/212/

Monday 24 February 2014

Ancestors





I made this drawing in 2012 and it is based on a photograph of of my grandmother in the arms of her  mother. The photograph was taken in the summer of 1899 in Birmingham, England.

Tragically my grandmother grew up with no memories of her mother, her mother died of a heart condition about 18 months after this photograph was taken, leaving her in the care of her father.  



Her father clearly did not cope as less than two years later he committed suicide, grief stricken at the death of his young wife. This drawing is based on the last photograph to be taken of my grandmother with her father, the photograph was rescued from a fire and the face of her father was destroyed leaving only his shirt collar and torso visible. My grandmother never spoke of her parents, but she did speak warmly of her grandfather and uncles, she never spoke of her loss - and such a great loss to lose both parents by the time she was three, instead she said that she had been a rather spoilt child as she grew up in a large household with six uncles.

I have long been fascinated with family patterns.  Are we born with the unresolved traumas of our ancestors? Can such unresolved traumas be inherited and passed down unconsciously to our own children? Can a trauma be transmitted genetically or through conditioning? Is is possible that one person in a family can take on or embody unexpressed feelings and emotions unconsciously, and if so is it their role to become conscious of and let go of these patterns?

To what extent is our role as parents, to what extent is it possible, even desirable, to try to become conscious of and let go of inherited trauma and patterns of behaviour?  How can such work, the releasing and letting go of old patterns that no longer serve but hinder, be made visible or is it invisible work? These questions inform my work as an artist - not on a scientific or intellectual basis, but more from an instinctive and feeling basis and, I think, from a deep desire to heal.





A strange thing happened when I made this  drawing.  As I drew my great grandmother she became more and more male, and weirdly she started to take on the features of an ex-boyfriend with whom I had a particularly intense but brief relationship.  I was very surprised when this happened, it came out this way unconsciously, but somehow it was right.  Somehow my brief relationship had triggered deep-rooted emotions in me, that were very old, perhaps not even belonging to me, and suddenly here he was looking back at me holding my grandmother in Birmingham in 1899.  


The practice of making art and in particular when drawing, for me has so often and still is, a mysterious and profound experience often generating more questions than answers.