Venus - Drawing

Graphite and Charcoal on Paper
14 x 17 inches (unframed)
Has white border around edge

Venus is about listening to the primal, wild female creator within and around us. The drawing depicts the interior of a sun-lit museum room. We can see several "woman as vessel" artifacts exhibited on pedestals in the open. The tiny Venus of Willendorf stands enclosed in a large glass case in the foreground. A nude female figure stands by the case as milk shoots out from her breasts towards the little Venus and drips down the glass. Did the little fertility Venus evoke a lactating spurt from the figure? Or is the woman trying to awaken the little twenty-five thousand-year-old fertility Venus, who once lived in a primitive natural environment but is now being held in a sterile case?

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General Statement about my Self Care Project

My work focuses on images taken from my memories, dreams, and experiences of female intimacy. My images re-invent themes that have interested me all of my life: reality and illusion, voyeuristic impulses, our relationship with our environment, and existential dichotomies.

Dealing with a persistent virus has instigated a new direction in my work, with the central theme being Self Care. A single woman lives in isolation in each of my drawings and paintings. She inhabits wild environments and has developed a symbiotic relationship with the landscape. The female figures embody the wild woman archetype and reflect the landscape around them: arms open up like flowers, legs mirror the bends of the river, bodies twists like tree trunks. The repetition of natural elements, like leaves or waves, evokes a sense of abundant beauty and simultaneously remains on the verge of overflowing and consuming the figures.

When I create my images, I rely on nature's beauty, poetics, and sensuality as it allows me to counteract the uneasy feelings I experience concerning my existential questions. There is always a moment of tension in my images, which fluctuates between pleasure and pain, power and vulnerability, life and death. The woman in my drawings embraces these dichotomies, the possible danger, the fear, the futility. She is aware that she is a part of the seasons of life; birth, change, decay, regeneration. The female figures in these works inspire how I would like to live my life. Stripped off material possessions, social relationships, and facial recognition, these women show us the value of being human and remind us what we can learn from nature; its resilience, adaptability, and ultimately, its celebration of life.

Interview with the Dig Boston about my Self Care project
https://digboston.com/self-care-and-the-wild-woman-archetype/

Animation of Venus
https://vimeo.com/547337581