On view April 19 – May 24, 2025.
Artist Reception Sunday, April 27, 4-6pm. Free and open to the public, live music and refreshments.
Mardie Luppold: Making the Invisible, Visible
If I say these images are archetypes, viewers might be confused, uncomfortable, or unfamiliar. If I say these images are shamanic, folks might feel strange, or even frightened. If I say these images are Kachinas, maybe people are able to come a little closer to them and will be able to access them easier, linking them to Native American culture: Kachinas therein are “deified spirits”. We all have them in us in the deep “roots of the mind,” archaic images from the collective unconscious, (thank you, Carl Jung). So, if we call them archetypes, it means the images are charged with psychic energy; they then becomes pieces of life because they are connected to the individual by the bridge of emotion and therefore become…living matter.
These are mine. We all have them. Creative folks simply keep the door open to the roots of the mind; going to the well to draw up an image, a melody, a dance, a poem, story, garden, building, dinner… Whatever it is, it is charged with emotionality; sometimes beautiful, sometimes comforting, sometimes uncomfortable.
Again, these are mine. Each of us will have our own cluster of feelings, characters, sounds and words. If we call them shamanic, then it simply means these creations are bridging the space, the energy between spirit and daily reality.
In any case, this is where these images come from, and why I call it, “Making the Invisible, Visible.” Some take a while to draw up from the depths of the well; some come more quickly and easily; some feel pleasant and some frightening. They are a coalescence of Native American teachings; Jungian theory; Neolithic and Paleolithic excavations, (Marija Giumbutas); which I have merged in each painting, done in acrylic, some with iridescence for emphasis. They are, in essence, what came to me from the well.