Stemming from the Feminine

Six paintings sat in the College Center Gallery, organized left to right from largest to smallest. “Stemming from the Feminine” is an art installation of work by Marie Arnold, a recent LBCC graduate.

Common themes of female figures and flowers spanned between the paintings. Arnold explained her creative choices during a brief talk at the installation on Feb. 23.

“I chose females for the feminine energy that we are in today, in this age of aquarius, to represent that. The colors I would choose represented certain chakras…” said Arnold.

The paintings Arnold chose hold a very deep significance for her.

“These pieces are very symbolic for me and very spiritual and kind of sacred,” said Arnold

Most of Arnold’s paintings were multimedia pieces, utilizing paint, ink, and common paint pens. The range of the pieces in the installation showed a truly painstaking attention to detail, as described by LBCC art instructor Anne Magratten.

“I kind of got the inside scoop on some of Marie’s work because I was able to watch her as she was creating these and they’re images that you spend a lot of time on. Marie is somebody who’s definitely in there perfecting the details and layering things up and seeing how they work together,” said Magratten.

Arnold often paints what she describes as “hybrids,” figures that are a seamless amalgamation of different people’s features. She explained how she created “Amber,” a piece in her installation.

“For like Amber, for example, she’s the first time I’ve ever drawn something that wasn’t actually a person. So what I did, I started drawing her face and I’d find different photo references that had similar body part-wise, if I wanted to look for a certain shadow and that way I was able to piece together, like frankenstein how this woman would look,” said Arnold.

Although it was clear that every aspect of each painting had deep symbolic significance displaying Arnold’s sharp attention to detail, her creative process is slightly less deliberate.

“When I draw and paint with these, I channel. I meditate before I do these things… I tap into creative infinity, I think that’s what it’s called, and I just speak it as it goes and I have to interpret it afterwards on why- exactly why I chose it,” said Arnold.

Art is a catharsis for Arnold and healing was another common theme, yet more subtly so.

“Art is a way of therapy of feeling. I aim to be a mystic artist, to create art in spirit to help humanity feel love and light... I channel a lot of energy into these things so they resonate with certain frequency,” said Arnold.