RUCI Art Space presents :

Tough Romance

A solo exhibition by Natisa Jones
Curated by Glenda Sutardy

Exhibition
09 December 2016 – 22 January 2017
Monday – Sunday
11 Am – 7 Pm

TOUGH ROMANCE

A dance of interior self-modulation and reflection with The Inner Child archetype

“The image of the child represents the strongest, the most ineluctable urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself.” Jung, C.G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 174.

‘Tough Romance’ refers to Natisa Jones’s, complex relationship between her conscious self, and her Inner Child identity that searches for self-expression and meaning within the paradoxes that arise in life.

There are two distinct areas Jones works in. Drawing, and painting. She has always drawn people, capturing the looks of passer by in a street. Hearing flashes of conversation by people close by, or of complete strangers. In the conscious and subconscious cognizance those encapsulated moment lay still but never dormant. As it is extracted when Jones require the Self to make sense of the things she encounters.

A painted work begins with a stroke. The artist has no preconceived notion of where the stroke will lead. There may be an emotion, spurred on by music, or a thought, and the stroke will begin to speak to the child within, as she recognizes relationships amongst the spaces within the developing image on the canvas. The dialogue begins, and then goes back and forth as the paint is applied layer over layer. Jones turns the canvas this way and that, until subconsciously, the figure she seeks, appears within the evolving relationship and interplay of space colour and line in a new recalibration of the Self. In a similar process, Carl Jung sat for hours in the garden at his retreat In Bollingen, on the shores of Lake Zurich in a dialogue with himself playing with a stick in the sand. He created small rivers for water to travel. The resulting dialogue opened up doors to memories stored within, releasing a flood of revelation and creativity.

We can describe Natisa’s creative process as a type of play. True play, in the case of Natisa, it takes place within the transitional neutral area that is her Inner Child archetype. The communication with the Self is intense as all her attention is directed towards harnessing spontaneous creative energies latent within her conscious and child-conscious worlds. Within this engagement she enters a state of concentration and withdrawal. In a pure state of play she attempts to connect her present Self to her Child Self, gaining new insights on past events and renewing her mind from that solid safe base of pure self in a release of creative energies and recalibration.

The layer and layers of paint then, reflect this struggle for a platform of temporary resolution. We the audience engage with the created textures, shapes and spaces within the work that are held together by the drawing of travelling lines under and over layers of exploration and resolution. And there at different places within the work of another we see bits of content, or written text that relate to ourselves. Our own thoughts are then captured by our own Inner Child who calls out for us to reconnect within our own place of creative withdrawal and renewal.