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Art – Domestic Goddess by Mathilde Jansen

In this series, I’ve re-shaped my conditioned mind as a (by that time) single working mum, within the domain of my home as a studio.

My role as an artist is entangled with my household and that of a mother and woman. Am I seeing through the fabric of a curtain, or am I hidden behind it? Cleaning, dancing, resting and organizing at home feels as natural to me, as a walk in the forest. It connects me to my heart, body and mind, where intention, dust, touch, move and scents co-exist in an emotional space with walls, doors, closets and transparent windows. As a (former) single mum, our house started to become a spiritual cube to me. It is were we’ve survived and learned to surrender and thrive, from within.

By exploring my natural connection to my home as an extension of Earth and its resources, I’m letting go of old patriarchal structures in which feminine senses and intuitive powers have been dominated or exploited (for the benefits of a power system). In fact I’ve talked to my shower and been drinking water as if coming from a well or source.

In the history of the Netherlands, a natural or spiritual connection to nature has been repressed by the institutional Church for centuries, whilst supporting economical activities and slave trade of the State overseas. A lack of sensual and free emotional expression has caused abuse of (so called) exotic women or even children, without a mutual equal connection.

Nowadays, people tend to project a wild inner nature on (trans)gender diversity. Yet heterosexual mothers often remain ignored or invisible, because the debate about reproduction focuses on a linear and statistic point of view, rather as the contagious power of love as a reproductive energy. And relationships built on free will and symbiotic harmony.

Natural forces have first been rediscovered at home, to affect social and economical domains as well. It’s a subtle and playfully provoking process. Poet and Jungian psychoanalytic Clarissa Pinkola Estés describes myths and stories in ‘Women who run with the wolves’.

Domestic Goddess plays with various interpretations of ‘the female archetype’ vocabulary. For people from western or market-oriented countries this title might refer to a fantasy world or socially submissive status, defining the role of a woman or tasks in a household in a less static way. Whereas in various cultures and beliefs, a ‘family’ spirit is associated with social integrity or emotional responsivity and implements these qualities on a professional level as well. Nevertheless, this series isn’t about left or right, but about exploring the subconscious and acting from that source in daily reality, within your community and living material surroundings too.

Mothership, part 1: Symbioscenes

Through the container project Mothership, I’m exploring how to navigate in my working and family life, pregnancy and motherhood, while evolving a conscious relationship with the Earth as a symbiosis. My first analogue photographs of a happening at the beach, Symbioscenes, will take part of a multimedia video work which is in progress, as the start of my artist residency in Motherhood, with the long term project Mothership.

Our consciousness is rooted in the soil (under our feet) and skies (beyond our control). What is the message of inner voices that we construct and perceive our reality from? I’ll edit unique audio fragments to play with daily, social structures and invisible powers. Such as eye opening fragments of my grandmother’s diary, which I got after she passed away.

Mothership intertwines female family lines and a psychological connectedness within a natural environment. I’ll visually explore the relationship between my (sub)consciousness and the way my body is one with nature.
The project forms a dialogue between my changing life, body and emotional system, but also seeks for new meaning within a collective consciousness. To find a dynamic and valuable truth which is solid enough to be able to build upon the concept of a symbiocene, a term by Glenn Albrecht.

More about the Mathilde:

Mathilde Jansen hails from Deventer (at the IJssel river valley), in the Netherlands. She graduated from the Royal Academy, The Hague (KABK) in 2006. Dar es Salaam has been a second home and source of inspiration. In 2016 she completed the postgraduate studies Education in Arts (Beroepskunstenaar in de Klas) at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. Her primary photographic practice seeks the universal value of natural resources and minerals as a means of tracing the complex relationship between people and the global economy. She aims to create new perspectives from which to examine social structures and the connections between the local and global, which, for Jansen, form the basis of human attitudes, social positioning and intercultural communication. In her practice Jansen consciously interweaves market-driven ways of thinking with an integrated holistic vision of nature, teasing out the borders between the two. Using experiments in analog photography, incorporating awe-inspiring constructions on location and manipulating medium format negatives, she creates a dynamic interplay between subject matter and representation, navigating areas as diverse and all-encompassing as nature and ecology, spirit, and community. Jansen envisions trees and organic structures being planted and preserved in urban spaces, gardens, national parks or anywhere – on a micro or macro level. Her current Landscape projects represent this interplay and interaction between modernization, wilderness and consciousness.

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More About Lisa:

Art

My work is driven by personal experience and its connection to contemporary and historical issues. Overall, my work addresses the complexities and intricacies of care and identity in our current culture. I seek to make challenging experiences accessible to those without the same somatic knowledge while still engaging in conversation and confrontation.

My recent work is mostly divided into two ways:
1. Focus on the daily lived experiences of women; their triumphs, their struggles, and everything in between in several bodies of work which reflects on the complicated spaces, both personal and public, that women inhabit and move through.
2. Exploration of the complexities of identity where family history, cultural and social influence, politicization, and personal desire are both at odds and overlapping. In this exploration, identity becomes a fact-based excavation of personal history alongside a kind of fictional mythological world-building.

In Living Hysterically each work presents a picture of the past, present, and future tied to the specific story of a woman or girl. These stories provide an entry point into the personal experiences, both positive and negative, that feature pain and fill the lives of women. Against a backdrop of social and political history, the work illustrates the forces working in women’s lives that create a spectrum of violence, from the mundane to the traumatic. This work claims space for women’s stories too often denied in public, creating representations that are more complex and thoughtful than the usual discourse. Moving through the installation becomes an exercise in empathy moving towards understanding and change.

In my practice, I incorporate layered, labor-intensive drawings, collage, sculpture, performance, et al, into fully realized mixed media works and immersive installations. Within my work, the viewer is met with bodily experiences that mirror the complexities of the stories I share, with a focus on shared knowledge, awareness, empathy, and change.

The Endeavor, beloved mother, left her place on April 23rd, 2021. Although only shortly a part of her community and space, she brought joy, happiness, confusion, and excitement in her brief time. Unfortunately, she also faced violence and had to be rescued from her place of rest by a loving and supportive community.

The Endeavor was meant for many things, including Labor, Failure, Death, Violence, Care, Community, Rest, and Love.

More about the Jessica:

Jessica Caldas is a Puerto Rican American, Florida and Georgia based, artist, advocate, and activist. Her work connects personal and community narratives to larger themes and social issues. Caldas has participated in numerous emerging artist residencies, including the Atlanta Printmakers Studio in 2011, MINT Gallery’s Leap Year Program from 2012-2013, The Creatives Project form 2018-2019, Vermont Studio Center in 2020, and was the Art on the Atlanta Beltline AIR in 2020-2021. Caldas was awarded The Center for Civic Innovations 2016 Creative Impact award, named Creative Loafing’s Best of ATL Artist for 2016 and 2015, received the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs Emerging Artist Award in Visual Arts for 2014, and was a finalist for the Forward Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award in 2014. Her work has been featured at Burnaway, ArtsAtl, Creative Loafing Atlanta, Atlanta Magazine, Simply Buckhead, and more. Her work has been shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA and is included in the collections of Kilpatrick Townsend, The City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Kyoto International Community House.

In her advocacy work, Caldas has spent time lobbying for policy at the local level in Georgia and spent time with the YWCA Georgia Women’s Policy Institute at the 2016 general assembly to assure the passage of the Rape Kit Bill and in 2016 to stop HB 51 in 2017, a bill that would have harmed the safety of sexual assault survivors on college campuses.

Caldas received her Masters of Fine Arts degree at Georgia State University in 2019 and received her BFA in printmaking from the University of Georgia in 2012. She currently runs Good News Arts, a small community arts space and gallery in rural North Central Florida.

http://jessicacaldas.com

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