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Most people associate Victorian funerals with the colour black – mourning dresses, hats, gloves etc. It is less widely known that the colour white - white crape looped with white ribbon - was appropriate when a child or young person had passed away.
Black feathers were a typical accessory for a funeral at the time. But mourning symbols in 19th century Victorian America, for instance, included jewellery made of the hair of the deceased. They acted as memorabilia.
For this exhibition Désirée felt compelled to base her work on those Victorian funeral customs that are less commonly known. She chose to use the colour white instead of black and hair instead of feathers.
This artwork represents the mortal remains of a child. It may refer to an actual young person or be symbolic for everyone's own inner child - may it be a wounded, sad, happy or a prodigy child. It is about the purity of the soul shining through at a young age. By mourning such soulfulness, one regains it.
Please come to this Friday's Jazz concert at St. Augustine Church where my sculpture Inner Reflection - male & female is exhibited. I will be there.
http://www.augustineonetreehill.org.uk/events.htm
Please click here to see a film.
St Augustine's Summer Festival (25th to 27th June)
There will be concerts on Friday (25th) and Saturday (26th) evenings and on Sunday afternoon. The concert on Friday evening will be Jazz, on Saturday evening the Elm singers are offering an evening of music for a summer evening including madrigals and on Sunday afternoon there will be a concert of chamber music.
On Saturday 26th June there will be a summer fair with opportunities for local craftspeople to hire a
t
able and sell their art works.
26/06/10 - 10.00am - 5pm St Augustine's Summer Fair
Craft stalls, antiques valuations, refreshments, books and more.
'Take A Pew' show 10.30am to 5pm
Evening concert for a summer evening. 7.30pm The Elm Singers
27/06/10 - Sunday Worship
'Take A Pew' show 12noon to 5pm
3pm - Chamber concert with contributions by talented local
musicians and actors
The sculpture 2 is 1 is androgynous. Depending on the point of view it could be perceived as either male or female. Even though true hermaphroditic humans do not exist, Désirée believes that regardless of our biological reality we have both masculine and feminine qualities.
Through understanding and awareness we can synthesize our double nature and thus undergo a process of inner alchemy turning ourselves into gold.
The Uncanny (Ger. Das Unheimliche -- literally, "un-home-ly") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange.
Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.