Collection
Bedrock, River, Basket
Astri Styrkestad Haukaas
Bedrock, River, Basket
(Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin)
Astri Styrkestad Haukaas on her series, Bedrock, River, Basket
I have investigated the symbolic aspects of water and stones & bedrock and minerals, in relation to each other and in relation to how we as humans create a memory and gather new information and turn it into knowledge. Working on this series I have both been studying the visual texture and color of stones, mountain sides and faces, riverbeds, satellite pictures of rivers in landscape and the human brain. While simultaneously reading about the symbolic aspects of these forms and about how the brain actually gathers new knowledge, I have learned how the creation of long and short term memory is so important to how we create the story we tell about ourselves. Who we are and where we come from is a vital part of how we relate to the outer world and its species.
Bedrock is composed of volcanic, sedimentary or metamorphic rock, and it often serves as the parent material (the source of rock and mineral fragments) for regolith and soil. The hard area of rock in the ground that holds up the loose soil above
Rivers move through the upper world just as they move through the lower world, overground and underground, inside and outside: rivers of fertility and prosperity, rivers of forgetting, rivers of binding oath, rivers of blood and rivers of water, rivers of rebirth and of death, rivers of sorrow. Offering fresh or freshening water, living fish, clay and fertile soil. Flood cycles and waterways.
Basket: Something that holds what you gather - The womb-like form woven in and holding the vegetation associated with the Goddess of Cyclical life. Linked to the mysteries of eternal rebirth-- It holds the corn/ seeds for next season's planting, and symbolically, the ever dying and ever reborn deity.
"Think of the brain as an intricate landscape of canyons, arroyos, inlets, bays, tunnels, and escarpments surrounding a buried seahorse, with the neurons that relay information scattered all through-- scientists call this the “neuron forest”.
- Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway, Nearby
Astri Styrkestad Haukaas says:
“Working on this series I have both been studying the visual texture and color of stones, mountain sides and faces, riverbeds, satellite pictures of rivers in landscape and the human brain.”
Astri Styrkestad Haukaas says:
“MY PROCESS HAS BEEN CONSCIOUS - IN THE SENSE THAT I FIRST MADE COLOR AND TEXTURE STUDIES ON PAPER OF ROCKS, MOUNTAIN FACES AND RIVERS. THIS PROCESS HAS BEEN A PRECURSOR TO THE PAINTING PRODUCTION ITSELF (WHICH I NORMALLY DON'T DO). I MADE MYSELF VISIBLE. YOU CAN SEE THE BRUSHSTROKES - A TRACE OF WHEN I WAS THERE. MIXED WITH NATURAL INTERACTION OR THE MATERIALS, THE WATERY SUBSTANCE OF ACRYLIC INK AND PAINT FLOW TOGETHER, CREATING STREAMS AND MOVING THE INFORMATION AROUND ON ITS OWN.”
