Subject matter in painting is merely the trigger that allows the expression of something more profound, unconscious and possibly hidden even from oneself, and therefore all inclusive, so viscerally immanent to humankind R. AlonzoTotems beyond Patriarchy May 2014
Nature has been qualified as a female organic form by most ancient cultures, but for the last millennia or so, the world has been primarily perceived and shaped by the masculine side of the species. Our recent history however has seen a trend towards a natural reversion to a feminine bias, with women becoming increasingly more crucial to all aspects of society.
These works serve to remind us about these issues and others that we continue to face the world while reinventing the female figure as an emblem for current conditions and a new Totem for the future. The juxtaposition between the representations of the animals and plants in compromised an ailing conditions and the female form that seems to swallow and revive the life- infused aspects of her creation, render a sense of hope for a future in which the maternal provides a healing force to an ailing planet.Signs. Symbols. Sentinels February 2, 2013The works of the present exhibition are the works done with the intention of exploring the physicality of animals, in particular as it relates to the bodies of a specific group of animals the bison, the bull, the horse etc. These are animals of our Paleolithic past. Needless to say, my intentions are to connect with our primitive and archetypical ancestry by re- articulating within our contemporary context those prehistoric images, their human bodies and their animals. Thus, these old protagonists acquire new meaning by bringing forth, I hope, the mood and emotional tone of our contemporary world, while at the same time they re- collect to whatever extent possible their ancestral meaning.
Most of my images, but not all, are of women � although many male figures, and an abundance of animals, inhabit my pictures as well. But it is woman, as earth and goddess that is the focus of my work. It is her anatomy, her biological capabilities and frailties, her distinctive pains and pleasures, her sexuality and aging, her chronic status, her tears, her peculiar psychological turns and her existential status that I attempt to capture in my paintings.
More specifically, it is the form, or rather, the multiple forms, of the human body that I depict. Naturally, as a woman native of South America, the forms, colors, textures, etc. that I take pains to create on my surfaces belong to a well known Latin American pictorial vocabulary that has roots in ancient Paleolithic forms. Building upon this tradition, I aim to create images that while connected to those �primitive� forms, are nonetheless very contemporary not only in their look, but also because they bring forth the mood and emotional tone of our complex contemporary world.
November 2003 Solo exhibit, new paintings, under the title
BACK TO BACK presented at Gallery 3,
showed some of my introspective analysis of the world at war, and its opposite, an esoteric world at peace.
In the show a series of paintings depicting abstract backs of women, mysterious, with hidden heads and emphasis on their spines. Along with these paintings, I have added excerpts from poems done by my father who was a physician and a poet in South America. I feel these fragments of his poems find their own space between each painting in the collection. I did not intend these poems to be self-referential or have any specific reference to my works. Rather, I see them as an impact from his spirit to mine
Becky R Soria
METAPHORIC TORSOS Exhibition Statement, January 2007, Solo Exhibition The Jung Center, Houston, Texas
From a Jungian perspective 3-12-2006On the torso aspect of the images.The back of the body is always the promise of a front, but in my work it is a front that never arrives. The mind approaches the world with its preconceptions, - can it see the back without somewhere unconsciously presuming the front --- no --- so what front is presumedIs there a person represented by a back such as this, is it somebodys back
Is it Woman rejecting being taken as a sexual objectThe back is a symbol of rejection, of turning ones back on the viewer, of looking away, but it also represents looking in the same direction as the viewer, looking at the same thing, in the distance. The back for beasts of burden carries the material weight of the world, but for humans, the back carries the weight of the worry, the stress, the pressure, the fear, the grief, and its physiognomy tells the tale tail of the persons life.And the back can symbolize the shadow as Jung observed,Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it. The Integration of the Personality. 1939. On the the abstract aspect of the imagesBurying into the inchoate place where images manifest, and pure light plays against color and form, I paint my abstract images. But these abstract images many times are on the border of meaning, at the place which allows projection of content from the shadow. As Jung observes,Projections change the world into the replica of ones own unknown face.Aion 1955. CW 14 P.17 Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.The Philosophical Tree 1945. In CW 13 Alchemical Studies. P.335
On the collage aspect of some of the imagesA collage is a beautiful medium to allow the play of ideas as images to play against ...   Read More