Australian born, mixed-media artist, Maija Liepins focuses on the sensory and emotional experience in her visual dreamscapes. Repetitive actions such as dream journals or collecting visual impressions with her mobile phone generates material with which to reveal the subtle, ‘underneath’. Maija’s drawings and films allude to a symbolic mythology as if the intangible substance of dream is a material as real as ink and clay. Her practice is driven by a pursuit of freedom - to express, to create, and to collaborate without inculturated inhibition.
The moment here. The breath, the whisper In the space between The whisper of wind is unseen. A visual artist makes visible the invisible senses? The hidden things in between the spaces. Negative space Dark matter Other world faces Rain spatter. Water floods and fire takes to the sky an elemental maelstrom A sparkle in your eye.
I have been thinking about The Whisper
Whispering is defined as speaking very softly using ones breath instead of ones vocal chords.
This makes sense of the phrase “the whisper of wind”
Which, in turn, explains my sense that a whisper can touch, tickle, and stir movement in your state of being the way that wind can touch the skin.
Tickle
Buffet
Push mightly in gusts
Blow out the cobwebs
Play with your hair
Chill you to the bone
I tense myself against autumnal winds
Go giddy in the summer breeze at dusk
In all these ways the breath can speak to the body
The energetic shock of yellow was out in full force last night. We welcomed at least 80 students, staff, and friends to a PV finale on Thursday evening. Karen Wood had made yellow striped bandannas marking out the quadruplet who would descend upon her red black and white tape installation to rip it up and down, removing it from the walls (video here). It was a very fun way to end the project with our visitors.
I’d like to think Karen’s invitation gave our visitors the chance to experience art work as a moving thing not a fixed point in time and space.
An ending A beginning Word seeds scattered to the wind – thank you Karen @kbwoodnews for the playful invite To set the double yellows free to fly with us / me Grinning Gesticulating Prancing new lines across the floor Circling @kz1y19 to talk about inside/outside Wearing old lines That lifted us up up and dragged us down down down Like birds on the thermals – The excitement in the air breathed in invigorates me too and still it’s memory fresh the vision new
Trace Maija re-dressed in tape, modelling ‘wall art’ A five second action
Susan Merrick’s choice of materials Bring you a playful step closer to making the mystery of Imagination your own every day. In the space between, the rejected feminine elements are Laughing and whispering noisily across the gallery surfaces, Making their presence known, Pulling at the threads of things Like mischievous ghosts.
I feel like I am 15 again Susan is making everything fun.
I feel like I am 12 Playing ancient characters from storybooks.
The process of reclaiming material from all ages, epochs and ocean beds will never look right under the glare. Mud and guts of the world. Utilitarian pins and nails and things. Ashes in my mouth. Tear it down before it’s done. The art is hidden under the lights. All the surprising combinations blooming in the conditions set. Defying ideas Of what we thought we were doing. A garden under lights.
Thursday
Mermaid tail with photograph scalesSusan Merrick, photo by Tina 5.12.19
Sometimes I just let the words flow without knowing what I’m saying. I was reading my poems and I found this phrase: zeitgeist non grata. I had to google the two words but was rewarded with discovering the combo is related to dissent.
Lust and vigour Retitlation Soaking resting Reclining partaking Zeitgeist non-grata Magna carta Heart based realisations Pulsing through the cut Warmth reaches where Before was cold And new life stirs From its dream filled Slumber
Untitled, 2016, Maija Liepins
Every era has prevailing trends and world views specific to that culture. We often internalise the voices and stories of our cultures and conform to them. The forbidden, taboo and undesirable gets suppressed Inside and identities emerge around our idea of our approved place in the world…
New work on show at Winchester Gallery until Friday 6th December.
Zeitgeist Non-Grata
Featuring conversational poetry between Maija Liepins and Sarah Misselbrook
Still from the film which has been described as “a chocolate box of brutal imagery”
I’m thinking about how being present with the work adds to the art experience when people visit. I’m thinking about what reliance on ‘wall text’ removes from the dynamic in an art gallery. So far, we have no wall text describing the work. This exhibition is one in which people sit on the floor and chat, quite naturally and without being asked. It’s not one where they circle the gallery and read the walls. Every day is different.
Using the space, the art, in process, connecting with collaborators not physically here.
One of the first things I find myself saying when people walk into the laboratory is “feel free to ask us questions!”
And if they look a bit uncertain about what they are looking at, I explain how dialogue is part of this process and we are interested in their impressions and responses too.
Yes, their impressions are more important to me than whether they ‘understand my work’. What I think I’m trying to say can change day by day, such is an artists life – this artist’s life? – I want to know what they see and think and there starts the conversation, there emerges the excitement of a meeting of minds (worlds).
Two students, came together, Sun and Hailee. I told them about Rapunzle when they asked, and the time she shaved her hair off.
“This exhibition makes me feel like I’m in a fairytale.” – Hailee
Sun noticed that I’d left a needle hanging from the bottom of the basket and how it seemed to create a connection with the lilypad underneath.
Kimvi interprets my work through re-arranging it (Tuesday)
He told me about the Chinese legend of the Monkey King, whose mother put him in the middle of a Lotus and floated him down a river and he was adopted by The Goddess of Mercy.
(I think Sun is looking the name up on his phone in the above photograph as he later showed me the Chinese – English translations.)
Right after this picture was taken, our second visitor arrived. Hello, hello! “Am I talking to an exhibition?” he said
Today’s thoughts on why dialogic process is important to me.
A peek at my WhatsApp chat.
‘Digesting‘, Thursday, Whats App Words with Sarah Misselbrook
When the artwork is invisible, happening in the dialogue in ‘the space between’ how do you share it?
By writing about it and talking about it I suppose. But most importantly by demonstrating it. No, by being it.
The lived experience of art in action…
Maybe it remains a private thing, until the seeds of a dialogue spout and take root in our lives. There is the creativity I am most interested in.
A couple of weeks ago I asked Sarah Misselbrook if she has a photo of herself with her shaved head that I could use. From this, came the following idea:
For almost a week we have been exchanging messages at approximately 8.00 every morning – just a couple – echoing, diffracting, multiplying, inspiring.
New work on show at Winchester Gallery Featuring conversational poetry between Maija Liepins and Sarah Misselbrook
Best times to see: Tues 3rd and Weds 4th of December 2019 between 10am – 4.30pm
[17:01, 11/20/2019] maija:
Rapunzle: I shaved my head to communicate that I didn’t need saving
Sarah: I shaved my head as an act of rebellion. To shed or rid myself of a traditionally ‘feminine’ attribute in order to avoid the prescription of beautification and adornment.
I am lying on your lilo inside the gallery, inside your clothing exchange to write you this note. It’s nice to be lying down for a rest after installing all morning, my film is now on the wall and you’re in it!
I have left you a silky summer yellow top with a snakeskin pattern. I bought two because I wasn’t sure which would fit me and sure enough neither was a great fit for my small breasted self.
I had the smaller one adjusted to fit me it was for Yellow a reference to the yellow haired Medusa, I just had to have it, I’ve never seen snakeskin in yellow before!
Clothing is often like this whenever I dress up in my 30s. Not part of my identity, but rather personas I can put on or take off depending on what expressions are calling to me to be spoken.
I recently explored the cultural (outside) and internalised (inner) ideas and images associated with the mother archetype my ideas of mothering, I was surprised to dream her as an erotic blond, I called her the Red Mother she was challenging me to revise what I would allow and be of myself.
However yellow is the colour of vitality and life force energy for me and the wig washes me out (I am not a natural blond)
So I leave it up to the laboratory what it will become. Either:
Part of a clothing swop trade
Or a conversation starter, becoming part of future works.
This is the singlet I swapped for the yellow one I was trading.
One of the beauties of this project is the element of surprise. Kimvi and Clarisse (previously referred to as YoYo the Observer) were in the gallery after hours last night.
I later got a call from Kimvi to inform me that I might not like what she had done with my work. Nerves and excitement on both sides!
The gallery is always changing at The Laboratory of Dissent.
When you pop-in you get the chance to see the work evolving, influencing one another, thinking process laid bare.
Photo: Kimvi Nguten, ft. Maija Liepins’ ‘Thinking Threads’
Photo: Kimvi Nguyen, ft. Maija Liepins’ ‘Thought‘ digital print on 300gsm paper
