And it Was Good… (digitally modified engravings)

“Collage is something like the alchemy of the visual image; the miracle of the total transfiguration of beings and objects with or without modification of their physical or anatomical aspects (…). Collage is an alchemical composition of two or several heterogeneous elements resulting in their unexpected union, due to a will tending_by love of clairvoyance_ toward the systematic confusion and “derangement of all senses” (Rimbaud), either by chance, or a will of favouring chance.”
Max Ernst, Beyond Painting

This work started with a fascination I have old engravings books that I found. I started mixing and transforming images from those books on computer, in a will of disturbing the situations and the features in order to create ambiguous and mysterious scenes, an uncanny feeling. As my process of work was mainly instinctive and linked to unconscious, the result is in a way very surrealistic, and using the same basis as surrealist (the unconscious, Freudian themes, the magical, the alchemical, the occult), to recreate psychological processes translated into symbols, through recurrent themes referring to a subliminal and atemporal unconscious.

The use of ‘Victorian’ sources refer to a mental past, and this past imagery echoes in a way the personal introversion toward a subliminal memory, a route to the unknown.

In an ‘Alchemical Glossary’ (in the end of “Max Ernst and Alchemy” by M.E Warlick), I found several themes and symbols that can be found in my work:

Black and White are 2 of the 3 major phases of alchemical transmutation connected to those colours (destruction/ purification)

Animals refer to materials, phases, and operation of the work. 2 animals of different sexes represent the masculine and feminine archetypes.

Serpent is the symbol of Earth, Primal Matter and its fixity+ libido and phallus

Lion is a traditional male symbol for the earth and Primal Matter. Killing of a Lion= destruction of Primal Matter.

Birds are symbol of the psychological traumas/ sexual intercourse

Crow refers to the color Black. Phase of blackness, putrefaction.

Eagle is the Feminine aspect of Primal Matter, volatile nature of the material.

Wings are volatile nature of the material, a volatile phase

Circle or sphere are a unity of matter

Primal matter is a base matter containing everything necessary for the completion of the work, a substance connected to the earth that must be found before the work can begin; chaos. The mythic ‘killing’ of Primal Matter relates to psychological battles, which entail the “disclaiming of all bonds and limitations that the soul has carried over from childhood into adulthood” (Silberer). Putrefied Body. Once the alchemical killing and the psychological stage of introversion are completed, purification and regeneration can begin. “The decaying which precedes the arising of the new being is connected with a great inundation” (Silberer).

Putrefaction is destruction, killing of Primal Matter to bring out all of its impurities, resulting in the blackening phase.

Water is one of the 4 basic elements of matter, known for its cool, moist, and fluid properties. It is connected to the process of purification. Introversion (sinking into ones soul) is symbolised by the submarine, which is capable of plunging into the depths.
And it Was Good…
(digitally modified engravings)

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Tags: Animals, Engravings, Max Ernst, Merging