Archaeology of the Self Series

Description

Life changed when the first lockdown began in March 2020 and so too did the collective dreams and emotions of so many people around me. The constant feeling of dread and angst, being trapped in a never ending state of crisis and the relentless dullness of never being sure what will happen next became central. During this time I began to explore the “Archaeology of the Self.” Using collage as a method to unblock creativity and taking Carl Jung’s texts and images as a starting point for inspiration, I slowly changed how I made work. I returned to my interest in the surrealists and symbolists and allowed my subconscious 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 pour out. I began making small, intimate drawings. They were composites of different images from life, art, medicine, culture and history forming confused, jumbled up and not always coherent scenes that somehow connected with the way other people were also feeling. They were recalling subconscious thought as waking dreams. These small images came to be a sort of Surrealist ménage and collectively form a catalogue of the unspoken, sensations of these current tumultuous times.