Susanne Iles
"Without symbols our lives would be as spiritually impoverished as sleep without dreams..." – Tom Chetwynd
According
to the Oxford Dictionary, symbolist art seeks special symbols to
express the essence of things by suggestion. It engages the viewer by
appealing to the heart, personality and unconscious mind, as well as
the intellect.
I'm often asked "what kind" of art do I do? I
consider myself a contemporary symbolist because each painting unfolds
like a puzzle box. I'll use the painting "Calcinatio Angelus" as an example. This is the first painting in my alchemy series, starting with Calcination.
An inspection of the painting reveals many secrets and correspondences
to the first operation in the alchemy of transformation.
- we are both Divine and Human
- "It's Father is the Sun"
- Angel is holding Saturn, lead, six-pointed star (painted gold first, then painted over in black ground with obsidian)
- re: Jacob Bohme (De Signatura rerum) "Behold in Saturn a Gold lies enclosed..."
- Matter, Malkuth, signified by a young woman
- Symbol
for Aries was initially in ram headed sandals, but I liked the idea of
her feet being exposed, so the symbol for Aries is now at her chest
- Saturn-prima materia
- Her eyes are closed because she has been overcome
- The entire painting was initially primed with magenta;the initial sketches were done in lead and silver point.
- Overcoming hubris
- The landscape in the background is a village close to my house called Ardgroom (in Irish it is An Rath Chruinn Dhá Dhroim) Dhá Dhroim may be translated into "two backs". The sacrum is considered one of the physical correspondences to Calcination.
-
Where the angel will ultimately land is the centre of a stone circle
which contains a burial cist, a stone box with human ashes within. An
Aries correspondence may also be found here as the physical location
had a ram's skull on the altar stone decorated with flowers.
- Purification by fire, burned to ashes
- When burned away, "primal" substances are left
- Her dress is painted with cobalt, cobalt (60CO) is a high energy gamma ray emitter, in high doses it can cause severe burns
- Cobalt is unstable and has similar properties to meteoric iron...thus her plunging to the earth like a meteorite
- Conversely cobalt is also essential for healthy nerve cells, red blood cells etc.
- Cobalt enhances oxidation, which is the next step to my second painting in the series, "Dissolution"
I'm
ever hopeful that the symbols in my artwork act as stepping stones to
self-discovery...or keys to gently prod the memory open...or maybe even
slightly pointy sticks to provoke curiosity.
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