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Water, the ambivalent element 2020 | Art Box Gallery Pretoria
Artist’s annotation: Solo exhibition at Artbox Gallery: Water the ambivalent element - June 2020
This was a solo exhibition at the beginning of the first Lockdown. I had worked on these paintings after losing a close friend and experiencing the abrupt and painful end of a relationship. I wanted to focus on water as a guide and comfort. Instead, the contemplation of water presented an opportunity for difficult self-reflection, which is why I chose the title: Water the ambivalent element.
Jung (1959:24) views self-reflection as an adventure for the courageous. When the favoured image of the unconscious is water, the adventure requires peering into the depths beyond the surface reflections, and then diving down to the depths. “Whoever looks into the water sees his own image, but behind it, living creatures soon loom up … dwellers of the deep … water-beings of a peculiar sort”. Here Jung (1959:24) lists intriguing mythical water dwellers (half-human fish nixies, melusina or mermaids, wood-nymphs, lamiae or succubi that represent the different parts of our psyche—attempting to call our attention to an imbalance, or an undeveloped aspect of ourselves, or to a dangerous pattern of thought. But Jung (1959:24) assures the courageous that “the treasure lies in the depths of the water” and must be salvaged.
He reminds one that to soar spiritually, one has first to descend into the dark depths of the psyche. “This proves to be an indispensable condition for climbing any higher. The prudent man avoids the danger lurking in these depths, but throws away the good that a bold, but imprudent venture might bring” (Jung, 1959:24).
Anyone who “goes the way of the waters” (Jung, 1959:21-22), which always leads downwards “to the deep well” (ibid), is flooded by “a boundless expanse, full of unprecedented uncertainty” (ibid) and disorientation. It is the world of water, “where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living begins (ibid). Jung points to life’s emergence from the primal waters. One fears returning to that primitive state, but is equally drawn to its comforting womb-like memories (Cirlot,1998:365). One’s fear of its depth, poor visibility and unpredictability are accompanied by its magnetism. Many of the myths to which Jung refers reveal that the greatest reward is found at the bottom of the well (Jung, 1959:24). “If attention is directed to the unconscious,” Jung says, “the unconscious will yield up its contents, and these in turn will fructify the conscious like a fountain of living water” (In Marshall & Cavendish, 1985:3002).
The obvious image that comes to mind when considering still water is the mirroring effect of its reflective surface. The reflection on a pool seems more real than reality, as it is contained, controlled and unified by the two-dimensional surface of the water. A reflection’s habit of doubling the world creates a pleasant visual effect, like a “strange water-colour painting that moistens the most brilliant hues” (Bachelard, 1983:48) and creates a curious symmetry. The reflected image is idealised. It gives the world a Platonic calm and balance.
The surface of still water captures everything that appears in the sky—stars, birds, clouds, the moon and the sun. The reflection places clouds in the deep and fish in the sky, creating an intriguing ambiguity (Bachelard, 1983:51). Continuing with the notion of water as a mirror, Jung asks one to study one’s own reflection: “[W]hoever looks into the mirror of water will see first of all himself … risking a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it: the face we never show the world … the true face” (Jung, 1959:20).
Proverbs 27:19 tells the reader, “it is your own face that you see reflected in the water and it is your own self that you see in your heart”. Once again the link between the contemplation of one’s reflection in water and the examination of the heart (unconscious) is suggested.
As a symbol, a mirror can be associated with consciousness and thought because of its capacity to reflect the formal reality of the visible world. But most often, it is thought to reveal what is hidden beyond appearances. contemplation and reflection of the universe. In Cirlot, (1998:212) the mirror is a magic symbol for unconscious memories. Hand mirrors in particular are emblems of truth. The Virgin in the paradise garden is sometimes depicted holding up a dainty hand mirror to expose the truth, as in the 13th century Cluny tapestries of the Lady and the unicorn.
The mirror has been thought of as ambivalent (Cirlot, 1998:211). It reveals the truth in the Christian tradition, but in other earlier traditions, the mirror’s role can be sinister. It is the surface which reproduces images, contains them and absorbs them. In legend and folklore, the mirror is frequently invested with magical power; a queen consumed by jealousy of her stepdaughter’s beauty consults a magical mirror in the fairy-tale, Snow White. It can invoke apparitions by conjuring up again the images which it has received in the past (Cirlot, 1998:211). In the nineteenth century novel, The picture of Dorian Grey, written by Oscar Wilde (1998), the “portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors … it would reveal to him his own soul”. The canvas would “bear the burdens of his passions and his sins”, and his physical aging. His own face remains untarnished and youthful, while the hidden portrait reveals the ravishes of time and moral corruption, becoming twisted and distorted, festering and decomposing into a nightmare vision. The portrait, like a mirror, reveals the truth.
At times the mirror, or pool, takes the mythic form of a door through which the soul may free itself by passing to the other side (Cirlot, 1998:211). The mirror as a door also marks the beginning of a journey of growth (ibid), as in Lewis Carroll’s Through the looking-glass.
Between contemplated nature and contemplative nature, there is a close and reciprocal relationship. The lake or pool is the eye and the mirror of nature—a large tranquil eye. The eye takes in light and reflects images and light. Bachelard (1983:28) calls this the “pancalistic union of the visible and the vision”. The interesting relationship between the two participles, ‘seen’ and ‘seeing’, can be explored through the role of water in a landscape. The true eye of the earth is water. In nature, water reflects and, poetically speaking, ‘sees’. Bachelard (1983:31) asks if it is not the eyes that are the windows and mirrors of one’s being, the most unguarded exposure of emotion. Water is the eye of the landscape.
Some of the paintings in this exhibition explore the pool of water as a large, tranquil eye (mirror) that reflects beauty and calm at first glance, but ambiguity and disquiet at a second glance. I cropped the paintings tightly to create a sense of “no escape route”, a feeling of claustrophobia. In the painting Still pool I used a very natural palette of warm browns, greens without a hint of acidity, blues that are neither too purple or too turquoise to create calm, then added a slightly jarring yellow to upset the balance. The dark silhoetted reflection of trees on the right of the painting have a twisted and spiney quality. Although the water itself is a calm mirror surface, there is a hint of decay under the surface. The very refined surface of the painting gives the viewer the mistaken impression of a realistic rendering, which at closer inspection is a highly obsessive and neurotic rendering.
In another painting that includes a glowing, orange tube, called Nocturnal pool, the image is so tightly cropped that you feel that you need to hold your breath to look at it. The strangely luminous orange tube, akwardly cropped in the top-left of the painting, has taken on a somewhat ambiguous presence. The viewer has the uncomfortable sense of hovering justabove the dark water with the immense tube floating closer.
Using uncomfortable cropping, tight compositions and hovering viewpoints, I was able to upturn the calm and predictability of these apparently tranquil scenes and thereby, explore a sense of ambivalence.
Danielle Malherbe
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