Rima Staines is an artist local to us. Her work is beautiful and mesmerizing, with a metaphorical, dream/fairy story, de profundis/depths-of-consciousness quality that reminds us of Jung. Her work weaves through symbol, archetypes, our ancestral roots and the rhythms of the natural world.
Like all art (and all acts/words), her work has a political dimension. She posted this image yesterday on Facebook, with these words:-
‘On this day of the elections, I offer you all this – RISE & ROOT – a symbol, a waymarker for the disaffected; Take it, print it, project it, repost it, share it, paste it on billboards… it’s yours. For the Wild.’
In describing her process in making this image and releasing it to the world, she imagines it on the backs of loo doors in motorway services and similar places:-
‘Like the gargoyles and marginal grotesques of the middle ages, I wanted to coax beauty in once more like a stranger to the citadels of public ugliness we all have become so used to. I wanted to surprise and unnerve and delight and disedge all the lovely human beings who have grown so unseeing in the unbeautiful subway of their daily rush through these places. I wanted ivy to grow over all the chrome and adverts, its clinging rootlets ruining the L’Oréal shine with their ancient, living patination, and its roots grinding escalators to a twisted halt. I wanted green silence to toll through the noisy claustrophobia of shopping malls and for the shoppers to break their ankles on huge ancient roots, which had crept in past the security guards (notwithstanding hoodies and ASBOs) to smash up the shops. I wanted to grab them by the hand, and run with them (limping) to the dark woods and remind them that they are powerful.’
We want to share her words, and her art. The link to her site is below.
http://intothehermitage.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rise-root.html
Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter
