A new exhibition from Tamworth based Pop Surrealist artist, Marie Larkin
She is the Revelation, a Vision, an Epiphany. Enlightenment. Fleeting, elusive and ephemeral. In her heart lies hope and in her passage, renewal. Her appearance is a call to action, the inspiration and understanding distilled in that moment will set them in motion. She calls the Warrior Sisterhood to emerge resolute, to gather across the badlands and depart, bearing their offspring and shepherding those most vulnerable. Lightly they tread this earth, as quiet as whispers they pass into the dawn.
Society has become increasingly anxious as we become more and more aware of how fragile the balance of our world is in terms of occurrences such as global climate change, the extinction of species and the threat of terrorist and nuclear attack. Through the rapidly growing genre of post-apocalyptic fiction and film, writers and filmmakers have responded to our increasing level of anxiety and try to represent the consequences of these. I have been very interested in how the post-apocalyptic genre has exploded in recent years, paralleling the increasing risks we read, see and hear in the news, on social media and in everyday life. Through their imaginations, writers and filmmakers speak to our deepest fears and force us to reflect on the human values we care about most. But there is usually hope at the end of these films and it is this hope I want to focus on in this body of work.
Initially set in a post apocalyptic world, this new body of work finds the goddess archetype as a warrior - brave, confident and victorious. The ‘battle ground’ or bleak world she emerges from is indicated, left open to interpretation, though not always explicit. She emerges wearing armour as a symbol of experience, resilience and knowing; not the destroyer, but the protector and creator of new life where there was chaos and destruction. On the ground where she stands, waterfalls begin to flow, plants spring up, animals play… She brings balance and new life, returning the earth to the paradise it once was. From chaos and hell, to the Garden of Eden. She is a metaphor for hope and the qualities of strength, resilience and willpower that mankind must draw upon to survive.
The women in this series move through the landscape as both warrior and explorer, seeking out a better world and creating it at the same time. They survey the landscape, they walk, moving over snow covered plains, rugged mountains and deep forests, they travel over the water, to come to journey’s end.