Dea in Absentia
Dea In Absentia — Artist’s Statement -
Ruminations on the Missing Goddess
In this series of abstract color photographic images I consider the missing goddess – the sacred feminine entity not present in popular notions about the spiritual realm. This is not a direct encounter with the sacred feminine, but photographic suggestions that she has existed and perhaps still does exist. For me, the possibility of her existence raises the many issues of spiritual dialog, identity, religion, authority, morality, sexuality, sin, confession, creativity, love, inclusiveness and self-determination. In many cultures she has taken many forms: the wise and helpful Athena; the beautiful Venus; the faithful Isis; the loving Aphrodite; the deadly Kali; the merciful Kuan Yin; the self-renewing Estsanatlehi; the protective Brigit; the nurturing Madonna.
My images are connected to war in the sense that I photographed them at an abandoned military installation in the U.S. But they are not of war. For me, these are images of possible evidence of the sacred feminine that once occupied a place in the inner life of humanity. And for whatever cause, perhaps our disregard or her disinterest, she has exited the scene. She has left us only shadows and markings of her many forms on the walls where, perhaps, she once stood among us, watching and waiting for our attention. I do not think of the scared feminine as practicing any specific religious faith nor following any direct path. She is a human spirit who has been a part our subconscious in one form or another for millennia.
The forms and colors of these images flow like water. There is fire and ice, light and darkness, and there are deep blues and vibrant oranges, yellows and reds. There are male and female shapes and intimations that combine with the vacant military location to create questions about life, death, love, hate, war and peace.
Perhaps these images are only what they appear to be: stains on the decaying walls of an unused fort that is now a place of some small history. But they may be more than that: they may be the evidence of our inner history inhabited with a feminine spirit more interested in life than death, more interested in creation than destruction.
