Daniel Mack

 

ANIMA

The Anima in an ARTEFACT exhibit June, 2011 at the U.U.C.R.T. Gallery, Rock Tavern, NY. 

I mounted the Anima on homosote attached to that rusted iron gridding used to reinforce concrete.

Exhibit Statement

For the last several years, I have been exploring ways of using ephemeral natural materials to engage the unconscious. This exhibit features The Anima, carved driftwood bark from the banks of the Hudson River in female forms. 

Anima is a term Carl Jung used to indicate both female energy, in men and women as well as later life energy.  These carvings, done in almost a meditative or automatic state, have something to do with "deferred selves".

Also in this exhibit are examples of another mediatative making process, Imaginal Cards, small collages to, again, provoke the unconscious, that realm of elsewhere.

They are playing card ot trading card sized--using the familiar as the doorway to the less known. 

They seem to gather into Decks and Suits.In this exhibit, I've put several from a Nature or Seasons deck. I've collected the lush ripe flowers and leaves of late April (dandelions, wild violets and Japansese Maple leaves) and pounded them onto watercolor handmade paper. I am working in the tradition of the Surrealists, those early 20th century alchemists who were dedicated to encountering the Other, the Unconscious, through methods based on intuition, chance, happenstance, the time of day, the season.  The pounding of the petals with the hammer (frappage) is an inexact technique--allowing for expression by all the materials and tools involved. The "maker" is a mere part of the making. The maker can continue the process of layering or scraping (grattage) until the work seems what?  Finished?    Never!

They are paired with the work of fiber artist Diane Savona