Archaeology of the Self Notebook Drawings
During lockdown from March 2020 until now, life changed. And so did dreams and emotions. The feeling of dread, angst, trapped in an never ending state of crisis and the relentless dullness of never being sure what will happen next. During this time I began an online course called Archaeology of the Self. Using collage as a method to unblock creativity and Carl Jung’s texts and images as a starting point for inspiration I slowly changed how I make work. I returned to my interest in the surrealists and symbolists and allowed my subconcious to take a greater role in my making process. After 20 years of only making observation based work I allowed the jumbled up confusion of images, thoughts and feelings to spill out. Having appreciated the technique of collage to push through my creative block, I began making small, intimate drawings that were composites, a mish mash of different images and scenes. They somehow connected with the way other people were feeling as well, confused, jumbled up and not always coherent. They were recalling subconcious thought as waking dreams. These small images came to be a sort of Surrealist ménage and collectively form a catalogue of the unspoken sensation of the moment in history we are living in.