Asylum
Asylum is all about sanity – what we perceive as sane or insane. The ideation roaming our minds. The Asylum series explores the idea of shelter and refuge, which can be a physical or psychological space. An asylum can be a treatment center, home, psychological space, healing stress or spiritual wounds. Our action and inaction haunt our dreams and abandonment may lead to living in one’s head. When damage is done to one’s conscience, demons lurk and images sift through our dreams.
A visit to Eastern State Penitentiary a few years ago led to thought and imagery, and as an historic site, ESP cannot be altered. ESP is overgrown with lichen and plants. Hallways crumble; cells are tiny; plaster and rock lay crumbled on the floor. How did one stay ‘sane’ in such a cloistered space? The penitentiary is a metaphor for our psyche the initial impetus for Asylum. Since my visit, I researched images of abandoned asylums, and articles on the impact of physical and psychological prison.
The paintings are created in oils, tissue paper and gels using a Surrealist technique called psychic automatism. Like automatic writing, images are random, not designed. Images found in these paintings are ‘pulled’ from the splotches; washes, of paint. Images are created and then altered in perspective. This is an attempt to find commonality, an understanding a questioning of views on sanity.
The color palette expresses not merely anger, but confusion and passion. We fall into traps of delusion. There is little calm or peace..just the rubble of one’s mind. Look closely…faces, animals, shapes appear. Much is hidden as we pass over so quickly.