The idea of divine femininity has diminished over time, according to the guest curator of a new exhibition at the ACT Art Gallery, that will explore the modern relevance of the goddess.
Goddesses: A Multimedia Exploration into the Divinely Feminine will feature six Vancouver artists, each of whom have explored different forms of goddesses: from Medusa’s to mermaids; those who were dangerous and those who were nurturing; from hybrids to those in their pure form – and how they are connected to the natural world, as animalistic, shape-shifting, or emergent.
“In many cultures we’ve lost the feminine aspect within spirituality. Our sense of divinity has become less and less female,” said guest curator Dr. Angela Clarke.
The art in the exhibition, she explained, will go beyond exploring queens, which hold a notion of measurable supremacy and instead focus on forms of goddesses, “for whom power is most often unquantifiable.”
Historically, depictions of goddesses, Clarke noted, were most often derived from what was going on in society at the time. They were models for how women were perceived and portrayed what their role and behaviour should be.
“They were often the archetype of larger-than-life figures that represented feminine personalities, very distinct from the masculine,” continued Clarke.
Clarke noted the work of Vancouver artist Georgina Lohan, who specializes in ceramic art, and whose Bernini-inspired ceramic piece, called The Return, rises to a height of almost three metres.
Suzy Birstein creates sculptures from fired clay infused with aged and lustered surfaces. Her sculptures, mostly of female figures, inspire her collage and oil on canvas where she fuses the past with the contemporary.
Another artist in the exhibition is Louise Solecki Weir, who is a sculptor of portraits and figurative works. She works with clay, incorporating techniques that range from classical to modern forensic, and is a frequent executive in the Sculptors’ Society of BC.
Anyuta Gusakova, born and raised in Vladivostok, is a sculptor, painter, who also draws and works with ceramic and porcelain. Her work is inspired by the mythical and magical, and is described as imaginative.
Lilian Broca creates large scale mosaic glass art works using historical iconography and an ancient medium – smalto glass – to comment on contemporary societal issues. She explores what myth and symbolism mean to modern youth and the human condition.
Finally, multimedia artist Linda Coe works with fibres and surface design, along with printmaking techniques. She recently examined and interpreted the frescoes of Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries, exploring feminine ritual, in addition to what might emerge from a transformative societal event, whether that be the ashes of Pompeii or the isolation of COVID-19.
Goddesses: A Multimedia Exploration into the Divinely Feminine exhibition runs until Saturday, April 9, at the ACT Art Gallery, 11944 Haney Place.
Hours are 10-3 p.m. Monday to Saturday.
Walk-ups are welcome during open hours, pending available capacity.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
