Birds can teach the soul.
Category: VISUAL
Now the seal is a strange creature, in’it? Not particularly beautiful, yet graceful in the water. Playful. We look into the seal’s big black eyes and wish we could wrap ourselves in her skin, that we could rather gaze on the beautiful woman we perceive. We would entrap and enslave her, we would have her bear our children, perfect children, and we would tap all joy from her life to satisfy our own momentary desires.
The winter tree, after being stamped by attendants at a baby shower, becomes a blooming spring tree.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Josephine, but African parrots, in their native homes of the Congo, they only speak French?”
vreugde
joy
The very first set of paintings I had up at an exhibition in a real art gallery (as opposed to the community hall) contained a panel where a hummingbird and a dragon play a macabre tug-of-war
When I made my dragon box, I used a picture of the humble pangolin as the model for the scales
waterdier
water animal
When I use fish in my work, it is in the guise of masculine symbol for abundance.
boosaard
gruesome
There’s hardly more to say about frogs.
But I’m going to anyway.
Gaan jy die Nuclear Holocaust oorleef? Huh? Huh? Gaan jy?
Will you survive the Nuclear Holocaust? Hm? Will you?
Indomitable. They can survive without their heads. They can
hemelvoël
heaven bird
Peacocks, who are so lovely to behold! A delicacy, a delight. In medieval and Renaissance art they indicate heaven.
More recently, peacocks are associated with pride.
But I would like to revive the heavenly connection
Liefling, het jy gesien? Ek het die hemel en die aarde geskep net vir jou?
(Darling, did you see? I created the heaven and the earth just for you.)
The dragon is a feminine agent of chaos
This little notebook contains my Symbol Dictionary. It came about from an exercise that Emma Willemse gave in her Conceptual Art Course: create a set of 26 personal symbols for use in art making. In my first iteration (which I did at varsity still so that was more than 10 years ago) the dictionary was a set of iconic drawings, cut out and made into a mobile. I wish I still had that. Symbols included a penguin, butterfly, unicorn, crab claws, eye of Horus and some designs I made up. The process led to my personal mythology (ah, my memory is coming back!)
With a final lick of paint to integrate the green scales with the red box, this little dragon is done. Previously mentioned here.
Dragon Box
Minette Visser
2015
Mixed media (Take-out box, oil on canvas paper, acrylic, lace, dirt)
There’s been a lot of owls around lately. Which is fine, nothing wrong with that, but I wish there were more little falcons, as well.
