Simorgh and Candletree, by Di Taylor
Archetypal images from Di Taylor’s computer.
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IN A CULTURE caught between the emptiness of abstract, conceptual art and the visual stridency of the media, archetypal images that are neither fey nor fanciful offer much-needed food for the soul. Jung said their magic lifted us to the unus mundi — that one world before spirit and matter were separated — "not the world of multiplicity as we see it, but a potential world … the eternal Ground of all our empirical being …" To find that world in contemporary art is rare; even less common is to find it in images that are computer-generated, to discover that even technology can be turned into a tool of redemption.
I first encountered Di Taylor’s images in the midst of the foot-and-mouth holocaust, and was deeply affected by their iconic power, their tapping into a vision that was transpersonal yet passionately felt. Particularly striking was one of the images prompted by the crisis: ‘Grief of moon for sickness in sheep’. Beneath a starry night sky stand a solitary sheep and lamb waiting to be slaughtered; above them a full white moon rains bloody tears of compassion, while on either side are well-rooted, enduring trees of life. Visionary without being escapist, profoundly felt but far from sentimental, the image evokes simultaneously the pain of the Earth and a potential healing. It has the mystery of a landscape that is both inner and outer, yet its symbolism is much more than personal — it has the compelling quality of a collective dream.
Di acknowledges the influence of Symbolist painters — Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau — and of artists such as the Russian Filinov, or Paul Klee, who have "used patterning as a stepping stone to one’s unique form of imagery". But despite her own art training — at Maidstone College, Kent, and later, in the 1980s, at London’s Slade School — Di’s increasing move away from secular work has aligned her more closely with non-mainstream figures. Her spiritual priorities — "I’m particularly drawn to art that has the sacred in it" — pull her towards visionaries such as Blake, Palmer, David Jones and Cecil Collins; to outsider artists like Scottie Wilson; to primitives; to the sculpture and painting of the East; to mystical iconography.
Her prolific outpouring of computer images began in December 2000, when she "started doodling on pc Windows 98 Paint programme — a very basic Microsoft programme, with little sophistication". Having known only conventional forms of painting, and "not being a technoholic — I was totally new to computing", the freedom and spontaneity of it took her by surprise. "There was an immediate fluidity and ease." Like Klee’s advocacy of a free, ‘aimless’ narrative line, an expressive ‘point in motion’, Di let the line just ‘come into being’ and go walking where it would. "I’ve always been able to look at a blank piece of paper and see images … and now the images were all there, bursting to become known. Images from my inner world, and collective and symbolic material, waiting to be released."
Like dreams, the images seemed to rise automatically: spontaneous expressions of unconscious material. Ironically, it was the method itself which seemed to bypass the control of the ego more readily than conventional painting had done, and from the eidetic imagery archetypal shapes and figures soon evolved, as though generating themselves. "It’s like sand painting … the machine gives a distance … It’s almost a kind of sculpture … the hand on the mouse doesn’t let you be in control in the same way as having a pen or pencil in the hand."
Spending sometimes minutes, but more often hours, on one image, Di has since then garnered a rich store of unconscious material. "The goal I set myself is to produce an image for every day of the year." It’s a spiritual practice, a form of daily meditation, a visual diary, an archetypal journal. And although the images are printed off and kept in folders, Di very rarely comes back to them to edit or rework: the production of a ‘perfect’ art object is not the aim.
"From the start I realized that the images were coming thick and fast, as if my psyche was releasing a backlog. Images from dreams, symbols from conscious and unconscious life, from my reading, all linking into archetypes I have long loved and respected. They’re from a variety of sources, available to us all." Images from ancient art, from Di’s practice in viniyoga, from classical gods and goddesses, from myths, mysticism, from poets such as Rumi and Hafiz. Works by and about Jung, alchemical writings, ideas that try to reconcile the masculine and feminine, stories such as Lindsay Clarke’s retelling of Parzifal. Sufi images: the holy fool, symbol of the wayfarer; or the cypress tree, symbol of the divine ego. Images from the Tarot. Images of fire, of the elements, of astrology. Images of the feminine: Earth, Gaia, the wounded natural landscape; the black Madonna. Christian and pagan images of death and resurrection.
The ever-growing body of her work shows a particular language of images developing, and Di has her own favourite symbols that recur. Amongst them, many trees and birds reveal the great Sufi poem — ‘The Conference of the Birds’ — to have been an especial influence. Attar’s allegory of the birds in search of the Simorgh, King of the birds, implicitly lies behind many of Di’s winged beings as they — we — try to fly towards the Simorgh: the Self who can be known only in the greatest paradox of annihilation of the self.
Being a daily journal, Di’s work also naturally reflects the gradually changing seasons, everyday life and world events. Many of the images have emerged in direct response to political events — foot-and-mouth disease, September 11, the war in Afghanistan — and in relation to these, her archetypal images have often come to seem strangely prescient.
The natural world is far more than a mere vehicle for symbolic patterning. It is revered in and for itself — its rich colours and textures, its incredible variety of animal and plant life, its energy, its movement, its endless power for healing and renewal. "I see the sacred everywhere." In the many cats, underwater creatures, bareback riders, fools, fliers, beings of air, earth, water and fire, there is here a playfulness and humour that shows a deep love of life, a deep sense of joy and fun. Images mirror and echo each other. Reversed, an image of the black Madonna turns into Christ, shadow to light, and vice versa. The world may be an illusion, but one which can be celebrated in art: a source of pleasure and play.
"There is relief, and gratitude, being able to ‘download’ my feelings in such a positive way … This is the first time my work has supported me emotionally. Before, it was what I did. Now, it’s a different form of ego involvement. It’s a priority. A spiritual necessity. It’s chinks of light put into images."
In our current climate of lament about modern technology, with the purist denouncing the computer and all it represents, it feels inspiring, uplifting and yet spiritually grounding to find art that can reclaim the pc too as an instrument for something numinous.
For Jung was surely right in his belief that the most healing images come, not from personal fantasy, but from a deeper realm — the transpersonal imagination — that links us to something larger than the human, something that touches on the divine. They take us to a place of poetry, of trance. But the greatest ‘chinks of light’ do not leave this world behind: rather they see it from another dimension, and seek, through art, to heal. •
Di Taylor: 01233 502346. johnandditaylor@ukonline.co.uk
Rosie Jackson is author of Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, The Eye of the Buddha and Mothers Who Leave. She runs workshops on writing and creativity. Email: rosiejak@aol.com.
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