Oceanids Rising Series www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/oceanids-rising
“This is a self portrait without self, a storybook without words and a list of endless questions with no definite answers.” (Kyunghee Lee, 2012.)
Water, and in particular the ocean, has been a source of inspiration to finding new frames of reference to understand our world caught in ecological crisis.
Inspiration for this series Oceanids Rising arose from the Maori legendary supernatural creature the Taniwha. Some of these were protective guardians of their their watery habitats, ‘kaitiaki’ and were depicted as reptile-like sea creatures which could shapeshift their form to sharks, whales or dolphins.
In Maori mythology, the Taniwha has parallels with the legends of the Greek Oceanids. These were young mythological goddesses responsible for protecting the body of water they inhabited, and the creatures that lived within it. In the face of the ecological crisis impacting the world’s oceans and waterways, I was interested in constructing through photography a contemporary representation of these mythical eco warriors,
“This is a self portrait without self, a storybook without words and a list of endless questions with no definite answers.” (Kyunghee Lee, 2012.)
Water, and in particular the ocean, has been a source of inspiration to finding new frames of reference to understand our world caught in ecological crisis.
Inspiration for this series Oceanids Rising arose from the Maori legendary supernatural creature the Taniwha. Some of these were protective guardians of their their watery habitats, ‘kaitiaki’ and were depicted as reptile-like sea creatures which could shapeshift their form to sharks, whales or dolphins.
In Maori mythology, the Taniwha has parallels with the legends of the Greek Oceanids. These were young mythological goddesses responsible for protecting the body of water they inhabited, and the creatures that lived within it. In the face of the ecological crisis impacting the world’s oceans and waterways, I was interested in constructing through photography a contemporary representation of these mythical eco warriors,
Blue Psyche, White Water Butterfly' 2017
In many cultures the butterfly is a symbol of transformation because of its process of metamorphosis. At the seashore, a wave is also a fluid site of water’s metamorphosis, from first a swell, then a crest, and then a breaking wave producing tumbling white water.
In this work, this white water is used to create a butterfly to symbolize the transformation needed (in the way we relate to water) if we are to protect, preserve, and rejeuvenate the Earth’s bodies of water.
In ancient Greek the word butterfly was psyche which meant soul and breath. Life is water.
