Zimbabwe

Letmotif Art Exhibition: The Sixth Sense

by
Lauryn Arnott

'Crossing over'

Charcoal, charcoal pencil, collage, on Dessin 300gsm paper

2004-06

_{Artist’s Statement:}

_{The drawing, Crossing Over is my attempt to portray a woman who has}

_{renounced the physical world of the senses in the desire to seek a spiritual}

_{world of love and understanding. In this I wish to explore the question: How}

_{do we explain, the political and violent events that happen in our lives and in}

_{the world, now that we no longer believe in the power of ‘divine}

_{intervention’?}

_{The inspirational, Algerian born, French Feminist author, Hélèn Cixous,}

_{(1937-), states: ‘Laugh Medusa for you are Beautiful’. In her essay Le rire}

_{du Médusa (the Laugh of the Medusa) published in 1975, she describes how}

_{women might write, breaking from myth and rhetoric that have kept them}

_{from participating in the public sphere. Cixous is primarily recognized for}

_{developing “écriture feminine’, a method of practice that addresses her on}

_{going concern with the effects of difference, exclusion, and the struggle for}

_{identity with the limits of Western logocenrism.}

_{In 2003, I arrived in Australia with my husband and two daughters having}

_{fled President Robert Mugabe’s violent regime in Zimbabwe. Themes of}

_{alienation, destruction and regeneration, underpin much of my work. My}

_{displacement, although painful, has become the source and the content of my}

_{creative process. In this I am drawing to reconcile the mark as an increment}

_{of retrieval, and its erasure as a metaphor for loss. The patterns of}

_{destruction and renewal can be observed not only with regard to my past life}

_{in Africa but also as a recurring historical phenomenon in the wider world.}

_{The content and the concept behind this drawing is the deliberate use of}

_{fragile and temporary materials such as the large unprotected sheet of paper}

_{pinned to the wall. The fragility of the medium of this work expresses its}

_{stark subject matter.}