The Bride

1988

244 x 244 x 153 cm

Mixed media performing sculpture.

The fashioning of an image is one thing, the fashioning of a mythological realm another.

Joseph Campbell, “Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God”

Combining different facets of her work, Lijn has created larger than life figures engaged in ritual dramas. In these dramas she looks at darkness, the darkness of empty space, the darkness of death and the emotional darkness of pain and suffering.

The Bride is a caged being, pulsating with repressed energy. In the Sumerian myth which inspired this work, Inanna who is the Morning Star and Queen of Heaven, turns her ear towards the world below. Unlike Persephone, who is raped by Hades, she chooses to make the journey to the Great Below.

The sculptures in the Bride series are about death and renewal and point to the need for continuous creation.

The Bride is an erotic otherness already contaminated with the vapours of death. Like a rainbow, it is a bridge between two states of being.

The Bride’s enclosure acts as a temenos*, offering protection to the fragility of a moment of imbalance. The mesh on opposing sides interferes with itself, creating moire patterns which make the enclosure come to life. It is not possible to simultaneously focus on the mesh and the Bride. The Bride is always seen through the grid of her enclosure.

*Temenos : In ancient Greece the temenos was a sacred enclosure, the space in front of a temple which offered protection to all who entered it.

Photos: Tomek Sierek, courtesy of the artist.

Photos: Courtesy of mima.