FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Goddess on the mountain top
Female collective explores self-revelation in multi-disciplinary show
by Nikki SheppyVenus Crossings
The Centre Gallery
Exhibition runs until December 20
Performances November 20 - 22On the walls of The Centre Gallery hang the paintings of Barbara Bickel, a gathering of richly textured images of the goddess Venus as embodied by six women. Among the most remarkable features of these paintings is their sense of dimension and layering, and their striking use of wood grain, lace and patterning.
"There are so many patterns out there that we play against and respond to," explains Bickel. "For me, it makes the art so much more exciting when I have a surface that I don't know how the figure is going to respond to. That's really important, because that's how life is. I never know how I'm going to respond."
In Venus Crossings, a collaborative, multi-disciplinary performance, seven women have joined forces to respond creatively to and redefine Venus, the archetypal goddess of love and beauty. Alongside Bickel, they are: poets Kathy Lynn Treybig and Joyce Luna, musician and dancer Echo Mazur, performance artist Catherine Cruz, dancer Kathryn McGregor and singer Laura Shuler-Stuijfzand. It's these six women who figure in Bickel's paintings.
According to Kathy Lynn Treybig, one of the challenges of the project was to open the door to a more empowering and inclusive vision of Venus.
"In our society, we like labels," she explains. "We often don't get very much beyond the dualistic perception of things - you know, right/wrong, good/bad.... We like to compartmentalize and by doing so we really restrict the full embodiment of what Venus is. Each woman is so unique in her own individuality and experiences. And what you see with the seven women is just how wonderful and diverse (Venus) really is."
For some of the women, taking on the archetype was a terrifying task. For this reason, Bickel intentionally set the group up not only as a team of creative collaborators, but a support group meeting to discuss barriers and to plot solutions.
"One of the things I did when I started the project was tell each of the women that stuff is going to come up," she says. "Be prepared to become terrified - both when you see the pieces and when it comes time to have them in the gallery. It was important to encourage the women to share that terror."
Treybig agrees that the process was a difficult one, loaded with psychological demands.
"A lot of different emotions arise," she admits, "whether it be anger, grief, resentment, jealousy - all of those things.... You have to (work) right through them before you can fully integrate the archetype."
During the course of the work, some of the women encountered a lot of resistance within themselves to the Venus archetype. Treybig sees this emergence as a response to societal propaganda about beauty.
"Resistance is really that part of societal definitions that are embedded quite profoundly in the psyche," she explains. "The resistance is when you're exploring your own truth or that discovery from your own experiences as a woman, and finding that it comes in direct contradiction and conflict with the (supposed) truth we've been taught."
Venus Crossings suggests that it's the explicitly uni-dimensional ideal of beauty (slim, leggy and very often blonde) that profoundly shakes women's ability to connect with Venus in their own lives. According to Bickel, her goal in doing the portraits of the six artists was to give that back in some way, giving form to each woman's unique personality and many dimensions.
"It was really important to give them a chance to actually (be released)," she says, "and to give them permission to be out in the world."
Treybig says the impact was profound.
"In a way, this gave permission to really celebrate the Venus form in its true aspect," she says, "not its Cosmopolitan, vacuumed, lipoed, collagenized form."
Bickel also felt it was important to do more than one painting in order to chart the evolution of each woman's connection with the archetype. In some of the paintings, the change is quite striking. Case in point: Echo Mazur's portraits. While the first image shows Echo playing music in what looks to be a state of semi-self-consciousness, the final image is pure emancipation - a sort of Easy Rider look sans motorcycle, clothes or Dennis Hopper.
Mazur says the women's different levels of comfort are also evident in the performances.
"It ranges from one woman who feels comfortable being very exposed and vulnerable - very exposed physically and sensually, I think - to another woman who is performing with a mask and cloak. So you've got the extremes there...."
And this is perhaps the heart of Venus Crossings - self-revelation.
"When you deal with an archetype it's like a gateway into the unconscious," says Treybig. "You have to be prepared for all sorts of things to come scuttling out.... For me, discovering Venus' strength and beauty was really to journey through her vulnerability."
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