Category Archives: Animals Spirituality Art

Self Portrait as Primitive

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Conte on paper (1989)

This drawing was originally titled Under the Hill, after East Coker by T S Eliot.

“The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.”

I said in 1989 that the image is about death and rebirth, about the passage of time and the rhythm of generations; that it also has to do with the elemental part of ourselves which we discover, recognize, only in times of extremity.

Fire Escape

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Acrylic, ink, pastel on canvas (2024)

Size: w 20″ x h 40″ x d 1.5″

After having posted several “in progress”‘ images of this painting, I announced with great fanfare back in May that it was finally finished. It was not.

Ollie in Gaza (Work in Progress)

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Acrylic and ink on canvas (2024)

Size: w 16 ” x h 20″ x d 1″

Ollie the orangutan was photographed by James Balog at Marine World Africa in California in 1988. In captivity, an orangutan can sometimes live into their late 50s. If he is still alive, Ollie is 42 years old.

Holding My Broken Heart Aloft

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Water soluble crayon/pencil and graphite on paper (1990)

Size: w 13″ x h 25″

This is what I wrote in 1990 about this piece:

Like the photographer James Balog who photographed the 15-month-old Atlantic green turtle on its back, I too am “continually mesmerized by this image of delicate sensibility.” Balog tells us in his new book, Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife, that the species is on the verge of extinction following systematic exploitation for meat, eggs, and oil. This picture is about vulnerability, and also about the awareness of incalculable suffering which surrounds and drowns each of us like a heavy sea. The turtle yearns to extend herself, to reach beyond her own separateness. The Scythian mirror, a relic from the sixth century BC, is symbolic of her vain, broken effort.

Passing: Fire Escape

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Acrylic, ink, pastel on canvas (2024)

Size: w 20″ x h 40″ x d 1.5″

Now finished — Ta-da!

Three of my paintings (Nereids in the Garden of Hippocampus, Leaving Eden, and Dragonfly Dance) are on exhibit at the Etobicoke Civic Centre this month through to June 6 as part of The Art of Regret, a group show of work by the Organization of Kingston Women Artists. Here is the link to the Civic Centre (scroll to click on Gallery Exhibitions and the image shown is of my piece, Leaving Eden).

Into White (III) Disintegration

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Acrylic and graphite powder on canvas (2023)

Size: w 16″ x h 12″ x d 1″

Part III of Triptych Into White (I, II, III: Destruction, Extinction, Disintegration)

Into White (I, II, III:  Destruction, Extinction, Disintegration) — see previous posts for October and November — is a response to the current wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East, to the accelerating rate of extinction of species, to our rising fear for the future of the planet. It is currently on display at the Tri-Art Gallery in Kingston ON until early January 2024 as part of White, the first in a series of exhibits based on pigments. The entire show can be viewed online at https://www.triartgallery.ca/white

White is terror, white is peace; extreme heat and bitter cold.  For me, white especially symbolizes absence, before the beginning and after the end, the initial void and the final emptiness.  White is eternity, what always was and what will remain when time runs out.  I see white as non-existence but not to be confused with death, as it is outside the circle of mortality within which all other colours are eventually absorbed into black.  White is thus unknowable as it lies at one remove, not next or beside but one step away from life, after the chalk line has been erased.

Destruction:  The action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired.

Extinction:  The complete disappearance of a species from Earth.

Disintegration:  The process of losing cohesion and unity; of coming to pieces, falling apart.

Into White (II) Extinction

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Acrylic, handmade paper, ink on cradled birch panel (2023)

Size: w 16″ x h 12″ x d 1.5″

Part II of Triptych Into White (I, II, III: Destruction, Extinction, Disintegration)

Extinction

Extinction is the complete disappearance of a species from earth (National Geographic Society).

Extinction: A situation in which something no longer exists (Cambridge Dictionary).