Lori Earley, Anima Sola, beauty, depression
There's an art meme going around Facebook, where you give people an artist and they find a piece they like by that person and post it. I'm not normally a big one for memes, but being an art lover, I had to try this one out. And because blog posts are at least somewhat less ethereal than Facebook posts, as well as better suited to long-form thoughts, I'm putting a slightly-expanded version here as well.
My delightful friend Niki, rather than giving me some classical artist as I was half-expecting, suggested Lori Earley, whom I'd never heard of. Google brought up a series of striking portraits, all of women done in a style I'd describe as pop-surrealist anime-influenced Gothic.
I'm trying to articulate what it is I like so much about them. I like that they're not subtle in their emotional overtones - there's a strong stigma in our culture against being "overemotional", and it's universally associated with feminine weakness and thus reviled. These women may be emotional, but they're not ashamed of their emotion and they certainly don't see it as a weakness. I suspect another part is that the women are all conventionally attractive, in fact exaggeratedly so - long necks, huge eyes, etcetera - but none of them look happy. Which resonates strongly with my own experience - there's a strong cultural impetus for women, especially attractive women, to always be happy - "You're a beautiful woman, what on Earth could you have to be sad about?" And yet beauty, while certainly a privilege and an advantage, is hardly a panacea, and frankly comes with its own set of problems. And that's not even getting into mental or cultural reasons for unhappiness, or even more abstract intellectual ones (because why would a beautiful woman have any particular desire to develop her brains? Being smart just makes you miserable). So it's nice to see the flipside of that - attractive women as they perhaps see themselves, exaggerated to the point of near-grotesquery. (I probably also identify with it a little personally, as I've always had a long neck, and in high school I was almost painfully self-conscious about it. Strange, how our self-perception changes with our maturity and our environment.)
This particular image resonated with me, especially after yesterday, when I was experiencing that generalized lack of motivation/energy that could have been a down-in-the-dumps kind of day, a low-level illness, or (as I'm always afraid will happen) the beginning of a depressive bout. I think it's because it so beautifully parallels my feelings about depression from the outside - dark and mysterious and thanatically appealing, but (upon closer inspection) emaciated, unhealthy, grasping, needy, insubstantial past its surface appeal. I especially love the black widow spider crawling up the branch - depression as a neurotoxic paralytic working its way through your system.
Needless to say, when I found out the name of the picture - "Anima Sola", a traditional Catholic art subject depicting a soul languishing in purgatory - that sealed the deal. I may have a new favorite artist.
Image shamelessly stolen from the artist's website. Go check it out! It's good stuff.
My delightful friend Niki, rather than giving me some classical artist as I was half-expecting, suggested Lori Earley, whom I'd never heard of. Google brought up a series of striking portraits, all of women done in a style I'd describe as pop-surrealist anime-influenced Gothic.
I'm trying to articulate what it is I like so much about them. I like that they're not subtle in their emotional overtones - there's a strong stigma in our culture against being "overemotional", and it's universally associated with feminine weakness and thus reviled. These women may be emotional, but they're not ashamed of their emotion and they certainly don't see it as a weakness. I suspect another part is that the women are all conventionally attractive, in fact exaggeratedly so - long necks, huge eyes, etcetera - but none of them look happy. Which resonates strongly with my own experience - there's a strong cultural impetus for women, especially attractive women, to always be happy - "You're a beautiful woman, what on Earth could you have to be sad about?" And yet beauty, while certainly a privilege and an advantage, is hardly a panacea, and frankly comes with its own set of problems. And that's not even getting into mental or cultural reasons for unhappiness, or even more abstract intellectual ones (because why would a beautiful woman have any particular desire to develop her brains? Being smart just makes you miserable). So it's nice to see the flipside of that - attractive women as they perhaps see themselves, exaggerated to the point of near-grotesquery. (I probably also identify with it a little personally, as I've always had a long neck, and in high school I was almost painfully self-conscious about it. Strange, how our self-perception changes with our maturity and our environment.)
This particular image resonated with me, especially after yesterday, when I was experiencing that generalized lack of motivation/energy that could have been a down-in-the-dumps kind of day, a low-level illness, or (as I'm always afraid will happen) the beginning of a depressive bout. I think it's because it so beautifully parallels my feelings about depression from the outside - dark and mysterious and thanatically appealing, but (upon closer inspection) emaciated, unhealthy, grasping, needy, insubstantial past its surface appeal. I especially love the black widow spider crawling up the branch - depression as a neurotoxic paralytic working its way through your system.
Needless to say, when I found out the name of the picture - "Anima Sola", a traditional Catholic art subject depicting a soul languishing in purgatory - that sealed the deal. I may have a new favorite artist.
Image shamelessly stolen from the artist's website. Go check it out! It's good stuff.