The Surrealist artist and writer Leonora Carrington gave animals, both real and invented, a central place in her paintings and fiction. Sometimes her animal characters represented mythological entities, such as Epona’s white horse, the Morrighan’s raven or Quetzalcoatl’s serpent. At other times Carrington combined human and animal features to create hybrid entities more charming than monstrous. More often than not, however, animals populated her work on equal footing with humans, communicating in mysterious ways and within fantastical landscapes. It was in this way that the artist radically proposed a non-hierarchical approach to life on our planet, refuting notions of human superiority and making us all accountable for the deplorable treatment of the earth and all of its inhabitants. This talk will focus on the role that animals play within Carrington’s work and how, in her adopted home of Mexico, she discovered that some Mesoamerican and indigenous shamanic practices coincided with her own interests and beliefs.
Susan Aberth is the Edith C. Blum Professor in the Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard College. Her publications include The Tarot of Leonora Carrington, co-authored with Tere Arcq, and Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art. She has contributed to Witchcraft; Not Without My Ghosts; Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist; Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvelous; and Leonora Carrington and the International Avant-Garde, among others.
Pagan Phoenix SW 