Mary McGowan
I use watercolour, photography, digital manipulation, direct print on aluminum Dibond/acrylic and fluorescent Perspex to create an affect of playfulness tinged with sombre seriousness. Working in this way allows images to surface and come together organically with limited deliberate intervention on my part. I paint, take photographs and in using a computer I attempt to unite different sensibilities. I like to be surprised and I enjoy seeing something materialise out of random endeavours. In reflecting on these images as a whole I imagine tiptoeing around a descent into a dantesque like landscape while anticipating the joy of arising from it. Reflective surfaces and imagery of shimmering water in dark cavernous spaces seem to offer the possibility of eventual rescue from what might otherwise feel like an entrapment. Going down into the depths may bring reward and solace might be the message if there is one but I feel that this is what I understand from a series of work that began in the lower register of colour but evolves, in presentation to allow in the lighter hue.
Landscape: an expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view
Inscape: the essential inner nature of a person, an object etc. and a sort of an interior landscape.
mixed media works
Small boat with Bird
Canal or "Its the Rainy season , I dig a canal" Rumi
Shimmer or "Set your life on fire.. Seek those who fan your flames" Rumi
Donegal Walk
Finding Heart
Angel or "the dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in" Rumi
Exploration, whether it is an external or an internal adventure, is for me about deepening my experience of what it means to be alive while at the same time acknowledging that life is an unfathomable mystery.
Art making offers a symbolic structure in which I can explore the meaning implicit in my emotional barometer that might otherwise remain inexpressible. Psychoanalysis contributes to symbol formation: In the consulting room symbols come into being as part of an active communication between two minds whereby I, as the analyst, give my attention and the analysand co-operates in offering up what is uppermost in his/her mind. A symbol might be thought of as arising out of this intersection between two. By comparison, in creating an art object the symbolic form will arise out of a dialogue between two parts of my self: My conscious self or ego engages with what is unconscious. If all art articulates emotional experience in symbolic form then psychoanalysis may be considered an art form, in that it provides a contemplative space and helps with symbol formation. Symbolic forms give expression to what would otherwise remain inexpressible but resonate with our psychic reality. In both activities I create space for the birth of a form that will give expression to an emotional experience that otherwise might not be accessible. Art seeks to steer a path between the personal and the universal and if a painting succeeds it is because others can identify and connect with the poetic metaphor or symbolic form. The image evolves in the making and I do not set out at the beginning with a master plan.