The Sheela na Gig is an image found carved throughout western Europe, but especially in Ireland. Incongruously ornamenting churches and cathedrals, these bizarre grotesque naked women expose hugely exaggerated vulvas. Their origins are obscure, with differing theories as to the age and purpose of these curious symbols. This obscurity is one of the reasons I find them so intriguing. Their ambiguity allows them to become something other, to evolve and devolve, to fold in upon themselves, weird anomalies seemingly out of space and time.
The series draws on my academic background in Celtic history, mythology and literature, weaving together different elements of legends and forgotten lore, using this concept of thread as a symbolic connective fuse.
Working on a small scale to create a painful intimacy, ‘Sheela na Gig’ and ‘Origins’ was originally conceived as a larger composite piece, a mosaic of facelessness, each square existing both individually and as part of the collective, just like mythological stories – pieces of an incomplete puzzle.
‘Origins’ was created in tandem with another series of works, “Mother”, which focuses on the nipple as a source of female power and oppression. Together they represent the composite parts to which women are often reduced, but through a lens of female experience. In contrast to being representations of oppression, they become symbols of empowerment.
関連テーマ
Elizabeth Hefty-Khoury is a British-Lebanese experimental and conceptual artist/writer based in Valencia, Spain. Her work is deeply inspired by her academic background in literature, history and mythology, fusing with contemporary issues and ideas into abstract visual forms. She is particularly interested in the intersection between images and text, especially how the two genres can influence and enhance each other.
‘Sheela na Gig’ was the embryonic beginning of a larger series of intimate works - ‘Origins’ - exploring the idea of female sexuality, fertility and motherhood through symbology and myth. Its name is not only a reference to our ‘origins’ birth, but also the confusing web of human mythological history and how we decipher it.
Elizabeth is the co-owner, with her husband Ibrahim, of Bloom Gallery in Valencia, an art space which focuses on emerging and established artists from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East.
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国籍:
スペイン
- 生年月日 : 日付不明
- 芸術的ドメイン： ギャラリーで表される,
- グループ： 現代スペインの芸術家 ギャラリーで発表されたアーティスト
