Exhibitions

MERRILEE CHALLISS: THE VOID & THE EYE

Julia Martin Gallery / 444 Humphreys St. March 4, 2017 - April 30, 2017

Merrilee Challiss

The Void and the Eye represents my desire to make conscious the awareness that everything is connected. The void represents the unconscious and the eye represents conscious awareness. I feel, acutely, the pain of being separated from my ancestors and the spirit world, the pain of separation from nature, etc., and I am trying to heal that wound in myself through my work. My inner world is a visionary world, and draws from many traditions, archetypes and symbols.

Shadow work, the collective unconscious, facing our own darkness, protection, the power of love, finding balance, and WATER are themes for many of the mixed media works. What we are seeing in our own lives and on the world stage is this struggle of “dark versus light” made manifest. This “wetiko” energy threatens to subsume us, but it also is what is waking us up. We must use our creative potential – our imagination is our greatest human asset – to consciously evolve and envision a better world.