Ox and Flight

Date1998

MediumAquatint and etching with printed text

Credit LineGift of Sara and John Shlesinger

Dimensions20 in. (50.8 cm)

Object number2003.070.017A/D

Label TextOx

Blue healing spirit
Your oxen psyche
Falls into step
Follows your shadow
Into the deepest ravines of the It.

Your anima,
Animals eat their own ideas.

Don't starve them
Lest you
Want a safe return.

Flight

Round and round
Is chased the Smoke Goddess.

Cat against catmare,
In the whirlpool
Of angry eye and
Dead sharp claw.

Fire woman, Fire woman,
Snuffed in the silence
Of your circles.

Carrington's early life was characterized by non-conformity and a fierce rebellion against authority whether school or her father. Having left home at the age of twenty, she became an artist, writing and painting with members of the Surrealist circle in France in the 1930s. She fled Europe during World War II, finally settling in Mexico City in 1943, where she continues to live. As a child she was steeped in Celtic folklore by her Irish mother, and over the years she has embraced many esoteric varieties of mythology and science, including Tibetan Buddhism, the Cabala, alchemy, Jungian psychology, and chaos theory. From all of these sources she draws imagery that gives form to her mysterious inner visions. Animals especially feature largely in her symbolic universe acting as intermediaries and psychic companions to human beings. The poems that accompany each of these prints were written by Carrington's son, Gabriel Weisz, an author and anthropologist.
Exhibition HistoryPrinted Matter: Contemporary Works from GraphicStudio, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 11 - May 12, 2006 (A&D only)
Published ReferencesMCCM Newsletter, March - May 2004.

ProvenanceEx coll. Sara and John Shlesinger, United States, probably purchased from Graphicstudio/Institute for Research in Art, Tampa, Florida.

Status

Not on view

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