The Space Between...

The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life." - Carl Jung

From the Dada activities of World War I, Surrealism was formed. The cultural hub of the movement was Paris in the 1920s, but it's influence quickly spread around the globe. Poet and critic André Breton has long been considered the major spokesman for the Surrealism movement. In his 1924 work "The Surrealist Manifesto" Breton proclaimed that Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality."

Joan Miro , a Spanish artist is recognized as one of the most important of the Surrealists. He created fantasy worlds that lacked realism and challenged reason, as in" Hirondelle Amour", 1933-34, oil on canvas. Notice the elements of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur.

Another artist who painted in the surrealist style was the Belgian painter Rene' Magritte. Her paintings force the viewer to reconsider what is real and what is not, for example the "Les Promendades d' Euclide ", 1955, oil on canvas. The work seems to show a room with a painting mounted on an easel. A window just behind the easel displays a view of a city. Yet a longer look raises a question Is the object on the easel really a painting or the scene behind it? Why is the shape of the tower identical to that of the street? Magritte offers no answers to these questions but instead, leaves us to ponder a picture that makes as much sense as a dream. Surrealism created new styles and techniques that inspired artists to go beyond their dreams with new ideas, new creations and a new world.

Surrealist writers and artists wanted to drive out reason, they were looking for states in which what is deep down in our minds may come to surface. I love the strange confusion between dream and reality, I call this place home, it is freedom in its truest form. I believe in the reality of our dreams and yes Dali... you read my mind.