As a follow-up to yesterday's Sunday Poem inspired by Deer Woman legends, here are two fabulous Deer Woman paintings by Desirée Isphording, a talented young artist from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Desirée describes DeerWoman (the painting to the right) as a figure "caught between two forms: that of a graceful doe and that of a girl. She is a shapeshifter, a creature who lingers at the edges of the Veil. She does not completely belong to either to the realm of Faery or of mortals. She wears both the finery of human aristocracy as well as a Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) in her hair. A tapestry, woven with human hands, bars her from the forest, the haunt of her faery kin, yet it still permits her a painful last glance at a path to the Otherworld. That same tapestry may also hold a clue - hunters with their dogs and spears are searching the forest for game. The style of this piece was largely inspired by Renaissance portraiture, and the tapestry is in many ways a homage to the Unicorn Tapestries." (Read more about the painting here.)
About the second painting, The White Doe of Nara, she says: "Where DeerWoman is tragic, perhaps a victim or perhaps a reluctant but mythically necessary sacrifice, the White Doe is a figure with power. While destiny is something DeerWoman succumbs to, the White Doe has a direct hand in weaving it. DeerWoman avoids the viewer's gaze, the White Doe commands it. I feel that the compositional appearance of the landscapes in both images is significant also; DeerWoman is poised at a threshold between worlds, but the White Doe is the threshold, a manifestation of it as well as a gatekeeper of sorts. Unlike the melancholy DeerWoman, the White Doe sprouts antler spikes - she has a means of defense (or offense!). And, of course, there is the rather obvious distinction in cultural context. A Western European influence is prevalent in DeerWoman, but there is a pan-Asian inspiration for this piece. " (Read more about the painting here.)
Comparing mythic art to fantasy art, she writes: "Mythic art...does not seek to exist in its own isolated bubble, but to tie into our world both spatially and temporally. Mythic art does not seek to temporarily sever us from our daily lives, but encourages us to delve deeper into the fabric of the world we actually inhabit. Fantasy whisks us away, while mythic art seeks instead to take us on a journey, which may be either fairly direct or labyrinthine, that ultimately leads back to the origin -- the world we encounter everyday. Mythic art brings us full circle." (Read the full post,"Ruminations on Mythic Art," here.)
To see more of Desirée's distinctive work, visit the Desirée's Musings and sphinxmuse websites -- which not only contain some lovely art (drawings, paintings, and jewelry), but also poetry and prose on the myths, references, and ideas behind her work. You'll also find two of her pieces in the Autumn 2006 issue of Goblin Fruit.