Tarot Card Paintings: Grief and the Roles of Women Georgina-Kay Holliday University of Wollongong
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University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 1993 Tarot card paintings: grief and the roles of women Georgina-Kay Holliday University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Holliday, Georgina-Kay, Tarot card paintings: grief and the roles of women, Doctor of Creative Arts thesis, School of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, 1993. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/957 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] TAROT CARD PAINTINGS Grief and the Roles of Women By GEORGINA-KAY HOLLIDAY B.A. City Art Institute, Sydney. M.A. New York University. (UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG LIBRARY Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Creative Arts degree in the School of Creative Arts Wollongong University November 1, 1993 CERTIFICATION I certify that this work has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution, and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference has been made in text. Georgina-Kay Holliday December 8,1993 TAROT CARD PAINTINGS Grief and the Roles of Women ABSTRACT This document examines a series of paintings produced after the death of my sister Denise. The paintings began with an overt subject, titled 'Roles of Women', but eventually, through interpretation, revealed themselves to be imagery through which I had expressed my grief. I came to see these paintings as the tarot card pictures of a posthumous reading which enabled me to communicate my feelings about Denise. The organisation of this document reflects the different stages of grief expressed through my paintings. Its format reflects a personal story of my memory of Denise, our sibling relationship, my view of her journey towards death, and lastly my attempt to come to terms with the ultimate finality of losing her. The document also speaks about the roles of women which I researched on a broad historical scale and allowed me to express my memories and feelings. The personal and historical themes often parallel each other in meaning but are kept distinct from each other in this written document to allow the major work of the paintings as tarot cards to visually resolve their connection. The process of making these images is described along with the constant sub-conscious dialogue that accompanied me through the grieving process. The collage materials physically utilised in my paintings were scavenged from debris. These materials represented to me discarded times and as such held memories of the past that paralleled my sub-conscious wish to bring to a conscious expression my memories of Denise. Roles of women became a vehicle for my journey through a past history, where I searched out objects and constructed images as part of a process of expression that met my sub-conscious need to uncover and express a personal analysis of my grieving process. FOR MY SISTER DENISE HICKEY November 1, 1939 - January 6, 1986 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 Introduction 1 SECTION ONE - LOCATING 8 Chapter 2 Introduction Paintings 9 Chapter 3 - Her-story 14 Popcorn Venus 15 Snow Princess 18 Witch Hunt 23 Honey 30 Children of the Wizard 33 Chapter 4 - Our-story 36 Bewitched 37 Two Faces 41 Lovelace Speaks 45 Red Leather 48 Chapter 5 - My-story 52 Confetti Pony 53 Moonlit Castle 58 Shower Curtain 61 Last Supper at the Doll's House 64 Page Chapter 6 - The-story 67 Ugly Duckling 68 Performing Hose 71 Woman in Red 74 T-Bone 79 Rapunzel 82 Madam Butterfly Clip 85 Chapter 7 - Transition 89 Ghost Models 90 Chapter 8 - Exchange 105 Family Ashes 106 Blonde Cross 110 Chapter 9 - Realisation 114 Corset 115 Stick Woman 120 Chapter 10 - After 124 Handbag 125 Compact 129 Manipulated 133 SECTION TWO - IDENTIFYING 136 Chapter 11 Introduction Fetish Dolls 137 r Page Chapter 12 - Persona 142 Henna 143 Cornelious 147 Silhouette 150 Chapter 13 - Beginning and End 153 Purdah 154 Warpaint 158 SECTION THREE - EXPRESSING 161 Chapter 14 Introduction Bed-Heads 162 Chapter 15 - Beyond 165 Dishes And Dolls 166 Fishnet 169 Ananke 172 Chapter 16 Conclusion 175 Chapter 17 Bibliography 177 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION This submission was written as a documentation of two exhibitions of my paintings shown at the Long Gallery at Wollongong University in Creative Arts Department during December 1987 and December 1988. As the exhibited paintings were my original research towards this submission, only those which serve as a visual reference to the text within this document have been photographically included. Influences which inform my paintings of the subject Roles of Women were drawn from a range of discourses encompassing social structures, history, sex-roles, psychology, feminism and art-based feminist theories. As an overt subject, Roles of Women provided a structural metaphor for a more covert psychological expression based upon the grief I suffered after the death of my eldest sister Denise. The pain of losing Denise, just prior to the commencement of these paintings, was too intense for me consciously to embark on a series of works that openly examined and expressed the many recollections and feelings that were obsessing me. I chose instead to embark on what I perceived at the time to be a neutral subject for the content of my paintings. Despite the fact that the chosen subject, Roles of Women reflected concerns that had personally interested Denise, it did not occur to me, until later, that perhaps my selection was determined by the invasive nature of the subconscious. The visual appearance of these paintings is at times dark, depressing and very overworked. I wonder, in retrospect, if I should have been painting within the confines of a subject at that particular time. Frustration both with the subject and its execution is to me very evident. Feelings of bondage and domination mirror each other in parallels that hint at how the apparent subject approaches my inner need to express the unresolved anxieties I was experiencing. Sticks cage the surface of the paintings; ropes 2 try to contain images; bindings attempt to bandage metaphoric wounds; dolls act to locate identities, and trinkets attempt to camouflage or distract in the same way as cosmetics, jewellery, shopping or toys overtly ameliorate or hide conflicts within the female roles I chose to present as imagery . Through the writing of this document I look back on the making of these painted works titled Roles of Women and see them as metaphors for the subterranean release of the personal mental clutter that one sometimes refers to as 'psychological baggage'. This document was my first step towards focusing outside myself to examine the content hidden within the subject I had chosen to sub-merge myself within. Realising that I had probably initiated my own personal analysis I began examining the nature of the image- making process in relation to the mental complexities that one attributes to creativity. This documentation is primarily written as a support to, and as an aid in, understanding the connection between my overt subject Roles of Women and that of the covert psychological content which expresses my experience during the grieving process. These painted images are best approached in a way akin to tarot cards as metaphors that suggest events and feelings. The written denouement of my tarot card images reveal that Roles of Women was a psychological buffer that deflected the pain of direct confrontation from conscious expression. Three stages mark this transition in my grieving process. The first stage I located my memories of the personal "herstory" of Denise while tracing the history of the Roles of Women The second stage I identified the frustrations surrounding my relationship with Denise while representing stereotyped personas of women's cosmetic identities. The third stage I expressed my latent anger anonymously through an identifiable subject which connected issues concerning the Roles of Women to those which paralleled my feelings of loss. These stages I have titled and divided into 3 sections that denote the 27 paintings under the heading Locating: the 5 fetish dolls under the heading Identifying: and the 3 bed-heads under the heading Expressing. Included within this document is a selected photographic record of 35 of the 60 exhibited paintings which best represent the resolution of my grieving process. Each work has been painted in oil medium and most include the use of mixed materials and object paraphernalia consciously chosen according to the dictates of the subject's cultural content. The paintings include the use of collage elements attached to the surface of the canvas. The fetish dolls are painted constructs built upon dolls. The bed-heads consist of constructs built and painted upon bed head-boards. Each painted piece evidences a special exploration into both the surface subject and hidden content of the work. Preceding each section of the various groupings of painted works is an introductory essay which introduces pertinent concepts that relate to either the influences, the process, or stories behind my image-making. The apparent subject of these works presents the history of women's roles as one of subordination to a dominant male culture. Inspired by the writings of various feminist authors I related a story that best suited what I subconsciously wished to express as tarot imagery. This body of work does not pretend to be representative of a particular strategy, theory, way of working, or aesthetic related to feminist concerns. Rather the concepts used in creating my images were superficially informed by the knowledge of those concerns. I relied on the writing of artists and art theorists, who wrote about feminist issues and related art practices, as my guiding sources.