A few months ago, I went to an art museum exhibit featuring surrealism and nature. It was an excellent show, and I was inspired by a piece by Leonora Carrington called “The Saints of Hamstead Health.” Carrington was an artist in the 1930s, was one of the last artists of the surrealist movement, and her works were often influenced by dreamlike imagery, mysticism, and Celtic mythology. I inadvertently created a piece in my sketchbook which was inspired by Carrington’s painting. The sketchbook drawing is very unlike the rest of my work, and I very much like it that way. It makes me feel like I am growing as an artist and expanding my creativity.
Carrington’s work on the left and my sketchbook drawing on the right.
I love surrealist art and I’ve brainstorming ways to increase surrealist elements in my work. But I’ve never been quite sure what makes a piece of artwork surrealism. I was inspired to conduct some research on surrealism to find out how it could apply to my work. According to my art history textbook “Gardner’s Art Through the Ages” surrealism grew out of the Dada movement. Dadaists created art in response to the aftermath of WWI, criticized the modern world, and criticized traditional art practices. They were heavily influenced by Freud and Jung and believed that their artwork should originate from the subconscious and focus on self-revelation. They created work that was spontaneous, involved chance, improvisation, was intuitive, fantastic, and a bit absurd. According to the authors: “Life and art were matters of chance and choice freed from the conventions of society and tradition.” They had the belief that the meaning must be left open to interpretation and that the viewer must interpret the meaning of the art on its own. This makes the artwork a different experience for each viewer. Most Dadaists later became surrealists in which the focus of the work became to express the unconscious through dream-like imagery. They used “the chance association of things and events, the dislocation of images and meanings, the scrambling of conventional contexts, the exploration of the subconscious, the radical freedom of artistic choice.”
I always thought, that in order to include surrealist elements in my work, that I needed to be in touch with my dreams or to create work that is dream-like. I found this frustrating as I don’t dream very much in my adult life. When I do dream, I rarely remember my dreams and they are filled with anxiety about adult responsibilities. Anxiety dreams do not make very good subject matter for artwork and do not fit the purpose of my work which is to escape from the stressors, pain, and anguish of my adult life. Instead, what I have taken from my research, is that Surrealism may be more about me being spontaneous and intuitive in my work, in order to tap into my unconscious.
To get more ideas about how to tap into my unconscious, I thought I would consult the king of cinematic surrealism, David Lynch. I recently re-reading his book called “Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, consciousness, and creativity.” There were two of his ideas I found very helpful.
First, Lynch provides several examples of how he utilizes spontaneity and serendipity in his work. He takes advantage of accidents and circumstance and incorporates them into his films. Second, Lynch describes how he uses transcendental meditation on a daily basis. He states that he does not use meditation to evoke surrealist imagery, but instead uses it to clear his mind and expand his consciousness. He suggests that when your consciousness is expanded, you can more readily come up with creative ideas. Lynch explains that he used to be a very angry person with many anxieties before he started his mediation practice. He states: “Anger and depression are beautiful things in a story, but they’re like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They are like a vise grip on creativity. If you’re in that grip you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create.” Lynch keeps his mind clear so he can “catch” ideas as they come.
After conducting this research, I now have three new goals of my artwork. First, I would like to be more spontaneous and intuitive to take advantage of serendipitous events. For example, I did not plan to make a sketchbook piece that was inspired by Carrington’s artwork. I drew the woman first, I then added the raven as an afterthought. My goal was to be experimental in my sketchbook but I didn’t know at the time that I was tapping into an unconscious influence from the museum show I attended.
The second goal I have is to feed my unconscious by exposing myself to artwork, books, films, music, etc. that I want to inspire my work. It seems that my unconscious will need to be fed with a collection of experiences and images as raw material for the creative process.
Lastly, in order to be more spontaneous and intuitive in my work I will need a clear mind. I’m not sure if I will include meditation into my daily routine, like Lynch does. However, I do want to practice being more mindful in my daily life. Whatever the method, I agree with Lynch that adult anxieties, depression, anger, and fear are all poison to the creative processes. My hope is that mindfulness and/or meditation will be the antidote to stress and anxiety to help enhance my creativity.
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Jody Monochrome Art 