Earth, spirit and gender: Visual language for the new reality - Softcover

Kyra Belan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0828108358 ISBN 13: 9780828108355

Publisher: American Heritage Custom Pub, 1997

Synopsis

This book examines and interprets world mythologies, symbols, and archetypes focusing on spirituality, sensuality, and matriarchal origins of civilization. The author applies research to her art by exploring various aspects of postmodernism.

This text has 76 color and black and white images.

About this title

From the Author

We are currently experiencing an accelerated shift in consciousness and spirituality which I describe and extrapolate in my book. By re-interpreting and revitalizing our mythological heritage, I promote the empowerment of women and the liberation of both women and men from the intellectual grip of social stereotyping. I also pay tribute to the beauty and sanctity of Mother Earth. The images in the book are based on universal, matriarchal and multicultural mythologies that I re-interpret for readers who are seeking to get away from the restraints of a stale social system in order to liberate themselves and unlock their creativity.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1 The Issue of Gender Identified Art

The ideas and art works in this book evolved throughout my artistic career. The art works are inseparable from the concepts and the messages that they convey, which are the motivating forces behind the creation of my visual images. Some of these messages and concepts have reached various segments of the public, in particular the people who have attended my exhibitions and lectures or read the ensuing press coverage. Yet, only a limited portion of the population has been touched by these messages. Convinced of the fact that my messages do not get across to the general public through the limited access that the art establishment has to offer, I decided to release them to the public in a form of a book.

Getting the visual message out into the world is a formidable problem for any artist. For an eco-feminist artist to get her message across is immensely more difficult, due to the fact that the audience is often unable to receive the full impact of this message because of its patriarchal conditioning. Contemporary society is largely unaware of the meanings of myths, archetypes and symbols that constitute that extensive but little known history of matristic civilizations. Current patriarchal structure often does not permit or encourage the inclusion of female achievements, symbols, archetypes and points of view in its history of culture. Women in the visual arts are especially vulnerable: their exclusion from art museums and art texts was practiced routinely for many centuries, and this situation is just beginning to change today. The spectator, therefore, when faced with my art works, is able to perceive, often through the lens of andro-centric values, only the formal aspect of the work, and perhaps a small portion of the message.

CHAPTER 2 The Face of Mother God

In order for humanity to succeed in transcending the patriarchal social structure and step into the portal of a gender-balanced society that is spiritual, peaceful and respectful of Mother Earth, it is necessary to readjust and rethink our myths, archetypes and religious beliefs. As we have seen, all organized religious systems that presently function within the dominant cultures visualize their God exclusively in male form. My belief is that in order for a society to succeed in transforming itself into a new, egalitarian structure that is spiritually and ecologically conscious, it is imperative that both women and men should be able to visualize God in both female and male forms, with equal ease. Only when humanity is able to revive, re-accept and re-absorb the image of the omnipotent and universal creator as female, the gender-neutral or genderless concept of God can be brought out for philosophical discussion, and accepted by humanity on both conscious and unconscious levels. Since a single-gendered patriarchal culture has been dominant worldwide for over two millennia, it is impossible for the majority of human beings to visualize an all-powerful creator in the body of a woman. Even if the concept of God is dematerialized into a pure energy or spirit form, this spirit-energy is usually perceived by the human mind on a subconscious level as either all masculine or more masculine than feminine.

CHAPTER 3 Mother God, Mother Earth

The icons of Mother God in my art can be classified into several types or categories. The Goddess may be depicted as a woman, or a fusion of earth based spirituality and female sexuality, and the resulting image is a self portrait, or a portrait of another woman. The Goddess, in this case, is depicted as an avatara, an incarnation of the sacred feminine on the planet. Mother God is re-created and re-envisioned in my art works through my interpretations of earlier sources, the familiar images of the Great Mother that are found in Prehistoric, Ancient, Hindu, Native American, African, and Eastern cultures and in the traces of the divine feminine in Western patriarchal cultures. Finally, archetypes of Mother God that display attributes from diverse mythological and religious sources of the past and present matristic cultures of the world are recombined into images of the Divine Mother that are a contemporary version of the visual manifestation of the sacred feminine. These Goddesses may also be self-portraits, portraits, or may have features of an idealized woman of twentieth century.

I employ diverse media and techniques, and often recombine them with new art technologies and approaches, such as mixed media, installations, process art, earth art, performance and video art. Visual content varies from pictorial to conceptual. The intent is to send into the world new ways of visualization and perception of God in female form.

CHAPTER 4 Mother of the World

In the late seventies, a book by Merlin Stone, titled When God was a Woman, was released, accelerating the popularization of the knowledge of a female divine heritage through the history of civilization. This book had a serious impact on my art. It reassured me that I was not searching for the female spirituality alone, and legitimized my profound desire to create images of God as a woman. At that time, I was formulating ideas for the inception of a series of works on the theme of Mother God that would not only include paintings or drawings, but also incorporate environmental installations, multimedia, earth art and ritual performance.

The environmental installations, earth art and performance art are usually temporary art works, and have to be photographed or videotaped for documentation and future reference. The concept of a series that would include the utilization of a variety of media, techniques and stylistic versatility took form in my mind. I realized that each installation and performance had further potential to become an edited video art form or video documentary. The decision was made to start a complex and long term project.

The project was titled Magic Circle Goddess Series, and was initiated in 1978, as an on going life project and a future traveling exhibition. The word circle was incorporated into the title because it is possibly the oldest abstract symbol for the prehistoric omnipotent Mother God, and it is still used today as a symbol of female divinity, spirituality and continuity of life in many Non-Western civilizations, such as Tibet and the Native American Nations which worship the divine feminine principle.

CHAPTER 5 The Female Gaze and the Male Nude

My interest in the male nude developed early in college, while I was attending Arizona State University. Those years, between 1969 and 1973, occurred during a time of significant social change which included the slow process of liberation of women from patriarchal oppression. As an undergraduate college student, I was passionately involved in my quest for acquisition of knowledge and artistic development, and was totally oblivious of the fact that beyond the college environment, women artists were pressured by society not to use male nudes as subject matter for their art productions.5 I continued to develop my technical skills and to pursue my aesthetic interest in male figure drawing and painting throughout my graduate studies at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where I produced numerous art works with male nude form as my main subject matter. Although the university never placed any restrictions on my ideas, as I began to enter professional juried exhibitions and make arrangements for solo exhibitions, I was confronted with my first encounter of what would become a career long problem: the censorship of frontal male nude figures, and the unwillingness on the part of the art galleries or museums personnel to exhibit the male nude forms.

CHAPTER 6 Earth, Nature and the Eco-Feminist Vision

In a conventional artistic vision, which reflects the dominant social system, nature is viewed as a territory to conquer and to tame. In fact, patriarchal society is structured according to a very specific hierarchical order. This organization can be visualized as a triangle or a pyramid, with the upper top portion reserved for the male God the Father, who also represents the heavenly realm. The male human is placed at the top of the earthly strata, followed by everyone and everything else that presumably exists at his service: woman, child, animal world, and nature. All of those that are located below man within the artificial structure of the pyramid are presumed to be in need of being tamed, conquered, controlled and molded in order to accommodate to the one-gendered ideology and the desires and needs of the male. This hierarchy is assumed to originate as a divine sanction of the male God. Western cultural heritage is seen as the measure of all things, and is placed above the accomplishments of other cultures by this Euro-centric order.

In my work, human beings are viewed as a part of nature and the Goddess is also our Mother Earth. Animals have the same privileges as human beings, and natural elements, such as plants, underwater life, or flowers are also glorified as spiritual and sacred entities. Numerous art works are dedicated to the creatures of the natural world that have been either persecuted or abused by andro-centric societies, or to whom negative mythology has been attached. They may also be an endangered species at this time. Peace, harmony, beauty and joy are the situations and feelings that are glorified in the art works. Violence, subjugation or terror are never the subject matter. My belief is that in order to heal the planet, our mind set has to be changed, and that positive images in art can help to effect this change.

CHAPTER 7 The Artist as Shaman

Since the dawn of civilization, when humans invented their first religion, the purpose of art was to generate and perform numerous religious rituals of humanity. Matristic societies of the prehistoric epoch dreamed up its first Mother God, and ever since, her ancient images have populated the archeological sites and the museums of the entire globe. From the available data of the most recent research, we can safely assume that the artist often doubled as the shaman-priestess-priest of this religion. This same tradition is still followed among the contemporary tribal societies, whose shamans, or medicine men and women, also create sacred images that symbolize or represent their divinities. Therefore, images of Mother God, and later also of Father God, together with the multitude of ritual objects, were created for many millennia and are still created today. My personal choice, as a Post-Modern artist, has been to incorporate some elements of shamanic traditions of the world into my art. Inspired by numerous religions of the past and present that do not separate the earthly and the heavenly realms, I create ritual performance art which can touch the public with its messages about the importance of interconnectedness, love, reverence for nature and the unity of the spiritual and the earthly realms. Ritual performance art helps me to convey the idea of the sacredness of all the beings that populate our Mother Earth.

CHAPTER 8 Site Specific Art: A Journey Into the Twenty-First Century

The discipline of art history, as we know it today, was formulated during the Italian Renaissance. This model has served as a blueprint for the direction in which art historical research has been conducted. Consequently, visual artists have been influenced and restricted by the traditional rules that their academic environment and historical research have imposed upon them. The rules of the academia routinely devalued or excluded the accomplishments of the entire female gender. Many of these academic rules have been broken or altered by the women and men artists of this century. During the Post Modernist era, further ventures into new visual territories have been made.

Art has immense and yet unexplored and undiscovered capabilities to become integrated into the physical surroundings and every day lives of a community. My aesthetic philosophy has brought me into the realm of the exploration of these possibilities. The degree to which my work can transform specific environments is determined according to the particular circumstances: the size, the shape and the volume of the space involved; the use of that space beyond aesthetic purpose; and the population that will be exposed to the space that the art work occupies. A very important issue is whether the space will house an art work on a temporary or permanent basis. These considerations are carefully evaluated before the art work is materialized for a particular location. It is my desire not to confine my projects to traditional gallery or museum environments. I enjoy bringing my work into the community in order to allow a more direct relationship between my art and the public. This philosophy is consistent with my belief that my creations must have social and didactic functions that could help direct our society closer to the goal of a benevolent, nurturing and spiritual paradigm. The resulting art work must also satisfy my technical, creative and aesthetic standards.

About this edition

• Publisher: American Heritage Custom Pub
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0828108358
• ISBN 13: 9780828108355
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 210