Random or not so Random?

Here’s a rather random set of images that maybe aren’t so random. 

My work is usually about landscape, but more specifically, it is about ‘place’ and our human relationship to it. Summer is my favourite time of year - born right at the end of July, I’ve always relished birthdays by the sea and find July and August good times to reflect. Both on life, and on art practice.

Recently, having seen lots of posts of the uncanny and vaguely erotic Ithell Colquhoun exhibition (‘Between Worlds’ at the Tate, St Ives), the works have been making me think about ‘place’ in relationship to the unconscious, ‘interior landscapes’ and embodiment, ‘home’, subjectivity and female agency. 

Rather than the traditional manifestations of womanhood that the male Surrealist’s often still used to define and objectify women, Colquhoun, who had been hugely into the occult since her teenage years, wanted to reshape female identity and sexuality through symbolic archetypes such as the Alchemist, the Scientist, the Weaver of Destinies, the Spiritual Guide and the Great Mother Goddess.

Above, L-R Death of the Virgin, 1931, Ithell Colquhoun; Self Portrait, 1929, Ithell Colquhoun; Gorgon, 1946, Ithell Colquhoun; Watercolour and Gouache on Paper, from the Colquhoun Archive.

While I have no strong personal interest in the occult, I do find human systems of thought, ritual, myth-making and our relationship with death and the unknown really fascinating. Ithell’s work was also inspired by the Cornish landscape with its megalithic burial sites, so like our own in the Islands. The stones carry such a presence. They are far older than organised religion, the burial chambers being around 4,000 years old.

Gran'mère du Chimquièrewas carved at two separate times - around 2500 BC and again in the Gallo-Roman period around 100BC. She was a statue that was hugely revered by local people, who still to this day give her fresh flowers to adorn her. In 1860, she was seen as a threat by the Church of England. The churchwarden viewing her as a sign of idolatory, ordered her to be destroyed. Broken in two, the parishioners protested so violently that she was cemented together but moved further away from the church, to sit outside the gate.

Above: Longue Pierre, megalithic dolmen in St Pierre du Bois, Guernsey; A burial tomb near l’Ancresse; La Gran'mère du Chimquière, the Grandmother of the Cemetery, is a Neolithic statue at the gate of the St. Martin parish church.

Where am I going with this train of thought? I’m not really sure, but I’ve also been thinking a lot about feminist art practice whilst looking back at these paintings of my nieces that I made a year or two ago. 

Above L to R Megan with Oranges; Weight training with Chart; Izzy in the Saltpans.

I’m also hugely drawn to childhood drawings (being an overgrown child).

Above L to R, Izzy’s Granny June; Megan’s Red Riding Hood? (note the question mark); A beautifully hand coloured ‘Adventures of Purl and Plain’ 1944 coloured in by my friend Jo’s Mum Cleone who I moved in with just after lockdown for 6 months; a 1930s children’s book illustration of a sprite.

And as always, I am captivated and influenced by my Grandfather’s beautiful beautiful photographs from the 1930s  through to the 1960s;

and generally, the use of archival images and family photos within art practice.

I’m not entirely sure how I will incorporate found imagery within my painting. Possibly through collage initially. When making the paintings of my nieces, I really didn’t know where they were taking me, and I’m still not sure, but it’s sometimes good to reconsider work after a long break to see if strands of thought have distilled, from then to now. 

I also really must get to ‘Between Worlds’ at Tate St Ives before it ends in October.