Desert Bloom Drawing

NOTICE: if you have problems viewing my works in good quality, please visit my website. ARTIST'S STATEMENT This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. Mystery and shadow, things hidden, have always fascinated me and are the starting points of my work and the points I aim simultaneously to arrive at, albeit exposed - shadowy spheres of the psyche and the reality, hidden, less known and for that reason considered weird, dangerous or eerie. In my practice, I principally draw on depth psychology and, what follows, world mythologies, the occult and alchemical symbolism, the natural world as well as - equally important - spiritual traditions, music and dance. I look for the living symbol, connections between psyche and matter and the expression of one in the other: an image that makes the heart beat faster. For that reason, I believe in non-intellectual reception of art and that any true artistic expression starts from within. My approach can be summed up by de Chirico's "What shall I love if not the enigma” - and from this my areas of interest stem almost naturally: the feminine, transformation, identity, mystery as the essence of things. My principal medium is a middle ground between photography, drawing and painting where analogue or digital photography is a point of departure. In the recent years I have mainly worked in the technique of my own design involving analogue photography, collage, chemical and manual manipulation and digital painting, but I also explore and work in the traditional mediums of drawing and painting. The process itself is intuitive, drawing on Jung's active imagination technique, where I work with images and ideas that emerge in response to an initial theme or form – following them as my guides into the unknown.