Offical Opening 16th October 2022 – 2 pm to 4.30 pm –
Welcoming speech by Ellie Young at 2.30pm
Exhibition runs from 28th September to 20th November 2022
“When we assert intuition, we are therefore like the starry night; We gaze at the world through a thousand eyes. “ Clarrissa Pinkola Estes
Here I have combined sculpture, painting, digital photography and alternative printing technique cyanotype to re-member my journey home; the long journey to find true feminine power buried in the depth of one’s soul; to remember the magic and medicine that lies hidden deep inside.
It is not an action orientated journey as that is the masculine way. This is a journey based on a woman’s way in the world, using her intuitive wisdom, instinctual knowing and feeling function to cross the seas, navigating by the stars to find her metaphorical new land;
where the sacredness of Mother earth, the mysteries of the universe and the wild instinctual feminine nature is revered.
My bone women are sailing and re-membering the times when nature was experienced as a living spiritual essence and there was an intrinsic connection between all living things.
The bones hold the lost and half- forgotten memories of the wild woman, our connection to our wildish nature that carries stories, dreams, words, and song. The wild woman listens deeply to both the seen and unseen. She whispers from our night dreams and when we’re on our own.
Ocean and celestial skies also represent the mystery of the cycles of life, the interconnectedness of the moon and the tides and the woman’s body. Like the feminine soul the ocean is unknowable, unpredictable, wild, and mysterious.
The vastness of the ocean and the starry skies have no beginning and no end.
The cyanotype blue adds the otherworldly, surreal qualities of the mysterious unknown.
The seed pods come from walks along the Brisbane River where I swam and played as a child. The river was my first connection to place, to nature. The bones, grasses and horsehair come from the land I live on now, Central Goldfields, Victoria- bones of horses, sheep, kangaroos, cockatoos, owls, chooks and fox.
The sails of grasses represent the dryness of our land and the need to stop pilfering and exploiting mother earth for material gain: a re-membering to protect the spiritual beauty of nature that sustains and nourishes us.
It was a long process making the boats, painting, and photographing the ocean and the night sky, composing then digitally photographing, making negatives and lastly the cyanotype. It was a slow process spanning a few years where life lead me in different directions.
I first discovered Cyanotype photograms at La Trobe University, Bendigo under the tutelage of Julie Millowick. I was taken by the beauty of her work.
During Covid I explored different cyanotype processes with mentor, Ellie Young at Gold Street studios. We had so much fun.
We experimented with traditional, simple and new cyanotype processes. In the end I used Mike Wares New Cyanotype technique as it has a better tonal range for the digital negatives I created.
This process, exposed under UV light, facilitated the alchemical marriage between the feminine and the masculine.
I hope you enjoy my work and re-member your journey home.
Kaye Dixon
To reclaim the sacred nature of the cosmos-and of planet earth in particular-is one of the outstanding spiritual challenges of our time. Diarmuid O’Murchu, Quantum Theology
Kaye Dixon – Photograph by Margund Sallowsky