I first met artist and writer, Mary Oliver while working together on the Message Sent project in 2021. Later, I interviewed her about Consequences, a lightbox installation she had produced, inspired by her visit to India in 1996. It is a collaboration, between her, her mother and her two daughters, bringing together poignant moments relating to birth, love and death experienced in each of their lives.
Consequences
a lightbox installation
Mary’s journey to the Hindu temples in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh in 1996, left a lasting impression on her, which she later documented in 36 graphite and pastel drawings. The essence of her discovered deities is beautifully inscribed in the sensual lyricism of her drawings. Although, they did not directly inform the creation of Consequences, they sharpened her sense of birth, love and death.
Archetypal symbols evolved out of the Hindu deities; the egg representing birth, the triangles representing love and a mountain representing death. It is perhaps no surprise that from these three stages of life, emerged Mary’s desire to work with the three generations of women in her life – her mother, herself and her two daughters. Each of them was asked to recount three events in their lives that related to these three themes. Four women of one blood line described three experiences which resulted in the creation of twelve narratives comprising text and image.
Mary stumbled upon the three by four grid formation as she arranged and rearranged her 36 drawings on her return from India to Cornwall, creating a structure not unlike the architectural forms from which they evolved. However, deciding upon such a rigid format was not as simple as it at first seemed:
“Endless variations in format suggested a variety of narratives. Images could be shuffled to tell different stories with different endings.” [1]
All four women might have led different lives, leading to alternative destinies, but the harmony of the square suggests stability. The grid formation creates a sense of containment – a form of control perhaps, of intense emotions that run wild between and within the fixtures of the frames. The viewer attempts to piece together a sequential narrative, but that narrative is far from chronological; it slides back and forth between past and present and slips in and out of the conscious and unconscious mind – memories evoking existential patterns.
The mirrored text is curious, dancing and performing across the diaphanous surface, like asemic writing, expressing the inner workings of the author’s mind. Beneath, the legible scripts present stories of fact stranger than fiction, an emotional interplay of profound watershed moments.
Luminous and iconic, Consequences evokes a religiosity, each of its windows tinted with a south Asian palette of purple, yellow, pink or orange. Its delicate transparency emulates a sense of time passing – colour fading with age.
The female line carries the weight of a sadness and grief – acknowledged and exposed. Despite the tenderness there is evidence of scarring. Perhaps these were perceptions and experiences that had never been shared before – perhaps new understandings were created? Consequences is a homage to four women’s lives and their connection to each other through love, conflict, melancholy and loss.
References
[1] Mary Oliver, interview with author, 26 March 2023.