The Rescue

Oil Painting, 91 x 122 cm

This oil painting is part of my series “Communing with Creatures”—significant and ongoing in my arts practice and based on important areas of my life: my conservation work with endangered species and my interest in the mythic bond between humans and the natural world. I have stalked, wrestled, seduced and been seduced by this theme across many art media: sculpture, printmaking, drawing, collage, water colour and oil painting.

The exuberant women in my artworks are placed in landscape inspired settings; their interactions with wildlife are indicative of my personal relationship to animals and also of my idiosyncratic interpretation of the Jungian anima and animus (accordingly, the proportion female/animal is non-realistic and personal); their nakedness is a visual metaphor with several aspects: devotion to and oneness with nature; freedom; openness, sharing and reveal; surrender to the environment; vulnerability in the face of natural forces; the ideal relationship between humans and animals—honest, close and caring. The female figures in my artworks represent me and therefore can be assigned to the genre of self-portraiture.

I record my dreams in a journal and decode each of them following the instructions of Robert Johnson in his book “Inner Work”. This dream work leads to my dream art. “The Rescue” is part of it.

The woman in this oil painting—myself—is obviously engaged with stranded fish at the shore. Behind her, a man is rowing a boat. My task as the dreamer is to draw analogies between my waking and my dreaming life and to figure out whom the elements and characters in my dream are representing. I also have to ask myself if the woman (I) is waiting for the boat man (to be picked up by him or to be joined by him at the shore)? Or will she (I) keep tending to the fish? A big question. The decision can be life changing.