Image of the Week: Night Sea Spirit

© D. Yael Bernhard

Night-Sea Spirit is a fertility image that I painted during the early weeks of my second pregnancy.  I was overjoyed to be expecting again, and overflowing with creative energy.  "As in life, so in art" has always been my motto, driving my pursuit of physical experience from which to draw artistic inspiration.  Dancing, for example, transformed my ability to draw figures in motion, such as this one.  Playing African drums infused my paintings with rhythmic patterns – also evident here.  Gardening generated a sense of connection to the earth that translated into many images.  Directly or indirectly, physical experience is behind much of my art.  

Never have I felt more physically at one with life than during pregnancy.  Numerous paintings flowed forth from my childbearing years – proving that art and motherhood are not, contrary to common belief, mutually exclusive.  

Thinking back, I remember what I wanted to express in this painting.  I wanted to make my own version of the  carved African fertility dolls I had collected.  My figure would be more aquatic, serpentine – moving and alive. I felt an overwhelming sense of immersion in life, and of life immersed within me.  As I slept each night, I felt my body growing a placenta, an intricate nest in which a new life was taking form.  Using snakes as a symbol of this living energy, the figure is not only immersed in it but becomes it, her limbs transforming into snakes as well.  At the same time, the space around her penetrates her body and branches out within her as more snakes.  It's no accident that the color of the egg growing within matches that of her eyes and the snakes' eyes.  It's also no accident that the streams of white patterns cross the snakes in a random way – for that's life, cross-fertilized by the unexpected.  If you look closely, you'll see that every one of these white patterns is slightly transformed where it crosses the woman – for we both affect and are affected by everything we encounter.  This is a common theme in my art – where a subject passes through a patterned background, both subject and background are transformed – first disturbed, then harmonized.  The search for equilibrium by use of disequilibrium is endlessly fascinating.  I ponder these "visual physics" constantly while I paint.  

Lately I'm less inclined to use flat color, and more drawn to blending and gradients.  Perhaps as I age, I'm tending more toward subtlety.  I also notice as I'm getting older that I'm less drawn to chthonic images – evocative of the underworld, or a dark, mysterious mood.  I was so fascinated years ago by the shadow side of life, by shamanism and mysticism.  I still crave earthy colors, but equally love pastels.  Of course, there are exceptions, as every image dictates its own palette . . . and my sensibilities will change as I continue to evolve.  

To a great degree I have no control over my art.  All I can do is ride the current that naturally flows through me.  Like any river, it's both shaped by its bed, and shapes it in turn over time.

A good week to all!

D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
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