Guardian
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EDUCATION Artist statement:
Memory Myth and Ritual
by Eunice Geustyn
The major impetus of the body of work is an exploration of a personal ecofeminist ideology that proposes a new anthropology which recognizes that humankind should co-exist with nature, a relationship marked by co-operation and mutual care, not domination and exploitation.
My prints are an exploration of philosophical and aesthetic metaphors which seek the residual quality of spiritual moments that link humankind and nature in indisputable ways by the recognition of spaces, objects, forms, and events that describe sacred places- repositories of religion, nature and culture.
Certain elements of the iconography are derived through the visual reclamation of modes of ritual and myth from ancient societies. While modelled on the archetypal, the work is the result of a contemporary consciousness of a historical past and a highly personal response to the events of the present.
One of the major recurring themes in the body of work is that of spinning and weaving. The motifs of weaving, spinning wheels, spindle whorls, spiders and maze patterns function as symbols of the creative, formative power of nature and the ideology that all life, including humankind, either is bound or linked or woven together. Thus the underlying metaphor is that humankind is only a component of the rich diversity of life.
The thread that runs throughout the entire series is the evocation of the 'tainted sublime'. Each of the prints reveal an aspect of current environmental damage -skies suggest the effects of greenhouse gases and airborne industrial pollution and depictions of the ground are invariably barren and devoid of verdant growth or organic material is depicted as decaying or desiccated.
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