The moving image | Divine Feminine

Written by John O’Brien, Ph.D.

Presenting IAJCC Art space

The moving image is as powerful in the visual arts as in the movies.  A work of passion inspired by the soul in times of conflict, suffering, and transcendence can move us in ways which we might not expect.  The paintings of C. G. Jung and his clients, secreted in the Archives at the C. G. Jung Institute at Kusnacht have served to animate the symbolic life for those privileged to have spent a few quiet moments observing them. It is not only a quiet space for the exhausted pilgrim teacher to have a quick snooze, but it also serves that purpose rather well. 

We, analysts, have been so impressed by the works of our clients around the world that we recently experienced a BFBO.  (A technical term from depth psychology which translates into a ‘Blinding Flash of the Bloody Obvious’).  

Art is transformational. It originates not only in the personal unconscious of the artist but also from the collective. It communicates the struggles and achievements of former generations and pinpoints this opportune moment in time, delivered via the soul’s search for something intuited beyond the impassioned polar opposites, with no surrender to the mediocre norm. The experience of holding the tension between them, yields the moving image, the deeper feeling, the call of the numinous. 

In the Kunsthaus Gallery in Zurich, the shock and sudden encounter with the lined and weathered face. It shows aging, suffering, and deprivation.  It reveals the sadness of joys past.  We realize that we are gazing upon the troubled mind. And yet as we stand and look, we see the wisdom, the understated and unpainted scintilla behind the window, the knowing the indefinable.  We hear the loving story of the artist, and each of those qualities in ourselves resonate, reflecting in the music of our times. I could have told you, Vincent….

So our BFO is to create space for meaningful and soulful art on our website at IAJCC.com. It is free. I think that we will call it  ‘Jung Art’.  Do not go there now. We will tell you when we have cleaned the floor and opened the doors.

It is for artists.

It is especially for artists who find Jung’s work meaningful and who wish to bring their paintings and words forward into the world.

Nada O’Brien, a Jungian Analyst, will be looking into the art that IAJCC will feature and she will share her analytic insights about the constellated undercurrents of our times which art expresses, the unconscious zeitgeist. 

Divine Feminine

The first contribution comes from a young artist in South Africa, and I am pleased to share it with you today. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Yasmin highlights the significance and value of a woman reclaiming her voice and her power – symbolically represented in the abstract gold sign. The painting is a self portrait which depicts some Arabic on the signs in the background signifying the artists middle eastern (Lebanese) roots. To reclaim one’s power as a woman does not mean to copy the imbalanced patriarchal ideology of power but to own and remember her very own unique version of this, steeped in the wisdom of the Divine feminine.

 “The divine feminine is believed to be the energy inside everyone that connects and binds the Earth. It’s the equal counterpart to the divine masculine, and both work together like yin and yang to bring balance to our lives”. 

From her point of view in the reclamation of these energies the woman who protests in the street doesn’t do so because she is fighting for change but because she knows this change is inevitable. It’s already a part of her, whether she can see it out in the world just yet or not she paves the way through embodiment of the Divine feminine, as she releases the paradigm of victimhood and oppression associated with distorted patriarchal societal archetypes. It is in her bones as she holds up her sign of gold, simply waiting for the world to unfold in front of her. Symbolically the value of gold transcends time as a physical currency, and in art historically as a symbol of both wealth and something holy and sacred.

Exhibited in 2024 at the Cape Gallery in Cape Town. 

ABOUT YASMIN

Yasmin Ezzideen experiences her process of creation as ritual healing within her own connection and sense of “oneness” to the earth. Creating portals into alternate dimensions as she draws inspiration from Mysticism and Holistic Shamanic healing practices. Her work currently explores themes of the goddess and the rise of the Divine Feminine. Dismantling imbalanced patriarchal archetypes in our modern world, and the “re-wilding” of women in relation to their connection to the natural and spiritual world in her charcoal and gold leaf drawings. Often she re-imagines historical paintings depicting representations of goddesses from Greek mythology in her own re-wilded, witchy, earthy woman style – shifting the image of a perfect porcelain-skinned goddess to a more visceral, flawed yet sensual human embodiment of the goddess archetype.

“The Divine Feminine is the feminine aspect of the divine power that connects and binds the Earth. She is the Goddess Energy which exists in all of us”

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