Ornamental Hallucination

Abstract

Ornamental Hallucination proposes to reconstruct a polyphony of ancient Pagan symbols as feminist archetypes to disrupt hegemonic narratives. With the potential to transform reality it pronounces the importance that art has to reinstate the values of creativity and the imagination, envisioning new ways of looking at ourselves in the world, and the possibility for change. It outlines the power obsessed play of mass culture’s construction of manufactured consent by the barrage of twenty-four hours per day of advertising, news media and entertainment. Asserting that the ideas on the psychedelic experience, which sprang from the counter-culture of ‘the 1960’s’ is one way to liberate the mind from the trappings of hegemonic thinking. It claims that as artists are on the periphery of society, it is unlike any other discipline and therefore able to take on absurd theories as a way of critiquing the machinations of established thought. Ornamental Hallucination examines the revival of the feminine principle through a psychedelic framework that links us to nature, or as McKenna says, to Gaian consciousness, via ancient shamanic practices and the invention and construction of positive and mythically empowered feminine role models as a guide for the soul, breaking down binary thinking and reconnecting psychically to our ancestry, to our bodies and lived and shared experience. Using examples of my work, I trace a lineage with other feminist artists, linking them to the theme of the archaic revival. Pagan feminine symbols are interpreted for a contemporary lexicon placing art in ritualistic context and appointing it the role of historical corrective to the ills of cultural engineering. Ornamental Hallucination in its physiological dimension will comprise of four large freestanding ceramic sculptures, one candelabra wall piece, a wall painting and a performance with a costume made from ceramic, found objects, textile and cow horn. All ceramics are fired and painted in oil.