After some years of not remembering my dreams, a few months ago I had a very lucid dream that gave birth to a new series of paintings. The content of the dream is not as important as the transformative energy it brought forth.

Carl Jung explained dreams as a kind of “shaped energy,” not yet fully formed emotions or thoughts released by the subconscious and poured into narratives by higher regions of the brain. Modern psychologists and neurologists, armed with imaging equipment have taken things to a more technical level, speculating that dreaming is the brain’s way of dumping excess data, consolidating important information, keeping us alert to danger etc.

For an artist, I believe, dreams can be an inexhaustible fountain of inspiration and expressing them a way to self reflect in a deep and transformative way. It brings me great joy to put down on paper and canvas the images from the lotus pond dream and share them with you.

The lotus-pond diver series was inspired by a recurring dream, and it is undoubtedly a response to the collective awakening of women (and men). The lotus, or water lily, traditionally symbolizes compassion, and the woman surging up from the mysterious darkness of the pond may speak to an awakening. These pieces are important to me personally, an essential part of my path as an artist and a woman, and more broadly significant in the context of the current societal shifts in regards to feminine wisdom and strength. This has become my koan*, one I will be pondering for a long time, deciphering it through painting. The human figures in the paintings are inspired by the Japanese pearl divers (amas**), who contain joy and strength in their bodies, at once vulnerable and indomitable in the vast, cold waters.

*ko·an = a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.

** a•ma =  Japan is renowned for its extremely rich and unique culture, saturated in traditions that other cultures have lost in the modernization of the world. One of those is the sacred tradition of Ama divers — a powerfully romantic custom of women free-diving for oysters, abalone, seaweed and other shellfish wearing nothing but a loincloth and goggles. Women are also praised for their self-supporting nature and ability to live independently, thus, making them more suited to the profession. What’s most astonishing is the old age to which the Ama continue to dive; some carry on the art well into their eighties, spending much of their life at sea.