Bright Night of the Soul

Vision,
Black ink on paper, 210×297 mm

Emotional Tie,
Ink on paper, 2x 210 × 297 mm

Atlantic Abyss,
Ink on paper, 297 mm x 420 mm

Atlantic Abyss Poem,
Ink on paper, 2x 210 × 297 mm

Source,
White ink on black paper, 210 × 297 mm

Etheri Surgery,
Ink on paper, 210 × 297 mm

Éire,
Black ink on paper, 297 mm x 420 mm

Inner Forest,
White pencil and ink on black paper, 210 × 297 mm

Mère Mediterranée,
Ink on paper, 210 × 297 mm

Pregnant with Love,
Ink on paper, 297 mm x 420 mm

2021-2024

The artist began this project in 2021, as illustrations and poems collected in a travel journal. Later to be developed into prints, they remain presented in this chronological narrative, evoking the individual’s search for the soul but also a woman’s reapropriation of her body and of its wounds. It moves from the intimate to the impersonal: portraying the mystical experience which transcends the body’s boundaries and illustrating this dissolution of borders and merging with the more-than-human-world. It is a syncretic heritage of symbolic and visionary art.
‘The Bright Night of the Soul’ is a reference to the ‘Dark Nighht of the Soul’, initially a poem by John of the Cross, later a book by Thomas Moore. It describes the period of obstacles encountered after a first mystical experience, to align the mundane world with the mystical realisations and visions. The artist chose to contrast it using the adjective ‘bright’ in order to highlight the beauty of the journey in the underworld, as well as the sacredness of the dark, the ethereal, the womb.

rivka salomé