Back to News Page

BARBARA NERI Artist Statement

February 8, 2007
Venus of Willendorf: Redefining the Goddess exhibit
Duderstadt Gallery February 9 - 26, 2007

"SONNET 1 (MINERVA DESCENDS)"
Created in 2000, this work is from The EBB Project. The Project began in 1995 and emerged from a mysterious dream I had about Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (EBB). Since then much work has emerged and been exhibited, presented & published in various ways. Viewers can explore the project in detail at this website. This particular visual art work gives flesh, in today's world, to EBB's allusion to Minerva in "Sonnet 1" of her 44 Sonnets from the Portuguese. When you see the work, you will notice that "Sonnet 1" is layered within the work. The specific allusion or moment concludes the Sonnet as the 'speaker' is drawn back from her descent into melancholy...

"Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,
And a voice said in mastery while I strove, . .
'Guess now who holds thee?'-'Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang . . 'Not Death, but Love.'

EBB uses a moment from Homer's Iliad when Minerva descends and draws Achilles back from his murderous rage toward Agamemnon. Minerva tells Achilles to give his mind over to reason not wrath. Interestingly, EBB turns the tables on the Greeks and makes Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom and reason, her agent of Love. As a Greek scholar EBB certainly knew that the Greeks gave the messy and troublesome emotion of Love to Aphrodite. But in EBB's Sonnet, Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom, speaks the word Love. And we might interpret this to mean that it is the 'wisdom of Love' that EBB speaks of. And further gather that the discussion of Love that the 44 Sonnets from the Portuguese are is one that is tempered by reason.

EBB's refers to or uses Homer's allusion to Minerva and I refer to or use EBB's allusion. Thus it is that ideas are built upon and the layered consciousness of humanity evolves. In my work, Minerva's hands are seen drawing a woman back by her hair from her grievous situation. The woman grieving has an ancient look, but she is taken from a recent associated press photo and you will see that I have disclosed that information in the work. I like taking actual events and news photographs and making them part of my work. I attempt to make relevant what is discarded or misunderstood. At the same time I ask a question: How can Love be a reasonable solution in the face of death and despair? I think Elizabeth asked a similar question (among others) and it took her 44 sonnets to work it out for us. The discourse on Love continues and though it masquerades as romance, it is deeply political, theological and metaphysical. In addition, the Goddess is always cropping up in various ways and being re-cast by artists and poets towards their own ends. I challenge, as EBB did, the viewer / reader to know more of their mythic and poetic his/herstory.

Click here to see a frontal image of "Sonnet 1 (Minerva Descends)."

"Isis & Sylvia (Plath): Mirror Image" I have been extending the synergy of creative processes that The EBB Project is to other authors and one of them is Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath admired Elizabeth Barrett Browning's work and felt that EBB and Adrienne Rich were among the few she competed with for greatness.

This art object work was created in 2006 and is a part of the "Mirror Image Series." I knew the minute I found this vintage 1950's hand mirror that it was for Sylvia. It has two sides to reflect the dark and light moon sides of her deep being. Over Sylvia's right shoulder is an ancient image of Isis - one of the earliest and most significant incarnations of the Goddess.

This was actually on the wall in the photograph of Plath with her baby daughter, so it seems Sylvia had some interest in having Isis around. Over Sylvia's left shoulder I collaged a younger blond version of herself. On the backside of the mirror is Plath's poem "Mirror"printed below:

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful -
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Return to top