May 2021
Talking Dolls Detroit
I use the cloistered monastic garden and natural spaces as a visual framework because of its history as both a transitional space and a haven for the community. 12th century monastic institutions served as protectors of the community. The monks’ gardens provided food, medicine and safety. The monks saw their role in society as doctors of both the mind and the body; to heal one you must also heal the other.
Meditating often on Soloman’s “Love Garden” and the “Paradise Garden,” the monastery gardens were built as intentional spiritual and healing experiences. As a point of debate, St. Augustine believed the Paradise Garden was a shifting space, dependent on your own time, place and needs. I liked the idea of a place or experience that could materialize as needed and then slip back into euphemistic myth.
I used my research as a starting point, but I invite the viewer to bring their own interpretations and experiences to the work. The paintings include moments of the forest, as a secluded and unknown expanse. They have animals which are often instigators of chaos, surprise and blunt honesty in my work, but also offer creaturely reassurance. The work also contains elements of the cloistered gardens, borrowing the ideas of safety and an out-of-body experience from the monks. The pockets of black and white charcoal give a jarring sense of comfortless change, unavoidable, unknowable, a fog. They are a ripping, a trauma, a painful way through.
---
Rachel DeBoard — Highland Park, MI