Opening Night Tuesday 10 November 6pm to 8pm
Meet the Artist Saturday 28 November 2pm
“A good work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal.” - Carl Jung
Massa Confusa is an old alchemical term translating to “confused mass”. It is the starting point of the alchemical process. The term was used by Carl Jung in the 20th century. He noticed that amongst other things, alchemy was about projection of the psyche onto matter. Jung saw that alchemy symbolised the stages of integrating psyche, or ways in which the conscious mind could be reconciled with the unconscious. Massa Confusa for Jung was likened to some sort of psychic chaos or the “dark night of the soul”, the beginning process of becoming a more integrated being.
The alchemical process seems like a fitting analogy for the stages of making art. We can start with chaos (or just disparate ideas) and maybe refine them into something beautiful, but not always linearly. This recent body of works has allowed me to once again use the landscape around me to process ideas and feelings through the motifs I'm familiar with.
