SEPTEMBER EXHIBITION 2016

Dear Reader,

I’m busy preparing for my exhibition in September. This exhibition is significant for me as I will present the watercolour paintings I completed as research material for my M.A. in Process Work (or Process Oriented Psychology), along with very recent oil paintings that have continued to grow from this project. Writing a thesis allowed me to give voice to my particular self-reflective practice as an artist. I discovered that the seeds of this practice were present in me as a dreaming child and have shaped my life.

The psychologist Carl Jung first noted that your earliest dream or memory holds a significant patterning that repeats throughout your life. Arnold Mindell, who founded Process Work, took Jung’s idea further to really emphasise the parallel between body symptoms and night time dreams. Big events in your life from chronic illnesses to peak experiences are organised by this pattern. Mindell established a method to work with dreams and body symptoms and discover meaning in a mystery.

Carl Jung also suggested that our unconscious is collective as well as personal. This means that our dreams have meaning for us personally, and they are also important for humanity. The universe dreams through us. Dreams manifest in the night time when we sleep, through our body symptoms, in unexpected events that may disturb us as well as relationship troubles and synchronistic world events. Many indigenous cultures value the wisdom in dreaming.

Painting for this exhibition has given me permission to play like a child while exploring powerful, timid, confused and vulnerable ways of being that connect me to humanity. While openness and play are central to my practice, a precision is also a part of me. It’s a strange combination that comes with a fair share of wrestling. I’ve stayed close to these paintings for about 4 years and have waited to discover how this idea needed to be known. Elizabeth Gilbert writes about ideas in her book ‘Big Magic’. She describes ideas as energies that roam through human consciousness, looking for someone to help manifest them. If you don’t give them the time and space, they move onto someone else. You lose them. They are like time spirits in our collective unconscious. By time spirits, I mean that they are somewhat shaped by humanity’s story and have relevance at a particular moment in time.

The paintings for this exhibition focus on the magical drama between objects on a shelf. Its my drama and a human story. These paintings are an invitation to your imagination. Your wonder and story completes them. They want you to play dear Reader.

My exhibition is titled ‘Off the Shelf’ and is on at the Regional Gallery at Murray Bridge between September the 9th and October the 9th. The official opening is on September 11th at 2.30pm.

I would love to see you there if you can make it.

Please feel free to share my post on Facebook or with anyone you think may be interested.

Warmly Lynn