Taming the beast- Apprivoiser la bête

 

Women hide pains inside them that they are sometimes not even aware of. This profound discontentment can stain their whole life and become an obstacle to their happiness. How can we help raise women’s awareness to their own suffering so they can better live with it and learn to break free of it? This is the starting point of the project: “Taming the Beast”.

 

Who has not at least once had to face suffering, whether inside or outside the self? Who has not experienced some form of psychological or physical abuse? Who has not suffered ill‑treatment, diet, criticism or pressure inflicted by themselves or by someone else? I named this suffering “the Beast”. I chose the symbolic images of a woman body and an animal skull to embody the partners in this transformative process.

 

The Beast is the enemy, the threat, the terrifying side of suffering, regardless of its origin. The Beast is the source of our fears, nightmares and delusions. Keeping a Beast trapped inside of us can do a lot of damage. Taming the Beast allows us to regain the will to live and love ourselves again. To tame the Beast inside us requires courage, strength and humility. For to do so, we agree to expose our true nature.

 

My works depict the dynamic interaction between the marred feminine body and the denatured animal skull. All of this is projected on a minimalist background, which evokes calm and purity. My coloring pencil technique includes the application of around fifty superimposed colored layers. This process allows the wax and the pigment in the coloring pencils to react with the working surface, producing interesting glaze effects, both subtle and profound. This process required a minimum of 40 hours of work on each piece.

 

My work process is an invitation to stop feeding the Beast, exorcise it, get it out of us and let it rest in peace. Fragments are reassembled to form a whole.The Beast is no longer the enemy. It shrinks back to its normal size and stops leading our life once it is put back in its rightful place.