Image of the Week: The Dream Hut
© Durga Yael Bernhard
Here's another painting from the "white line" phase of my development of an artist. Painted in 1989, The Dream Hut shows the influence of Australian aboriginal art and mythology on my work. My deep dive into Jungian dream analysis throughout my twenties also led me to explore the native Australian concept of the "Dream Time", a parallel reality that involves shamanic practice and richly layered images of animal and ancestral spirits. This faraway culture became a veritable playground for my imagination. I was fascinated by concepts of inner transformation, and wanted to emulate the unique energy I saw in tribal art. I experimented with concentric lines and contrasting, densely-packed textures to create a vibrating effect that animates the space between objects. It was fairly time-consuming to paint all these patterns – but time disappears when I'm engaged in this sort of work. Articulating patterns and textures is the closest I've come to quilting, knitting, or weaving.
The dream hut itself takes the form of a face partly composed of snakes. This house of dreams imagines our relation to the Unconscious, that ocean of living, fluid archetypes of which we are all, collectively and individually, a part. My sleepers were snug in their hut, afloat in rippling waves of energy, surrounded by a sea of potential – for dreams can encompass anything.
My love affair with the energetic patterns of native Australian art lasted several years. The currents of time have taken me far from those shores in the thirty years since. But as I write these words, a new version of The Dream Hut begins to crystallize. I see a gentler way to exploit the basic concept. The sea of the Unconscious would no longer be red. I see dark teal . . . a different face . . . more nuanced figures . . . birds and fish instead of shapes . . . the possibilities move through my mind's eye like an image on a screen.
One thing won't change: I will have to do this painting at night.
Wishing you a week of pleasant dreams.
D Yael Bernhard