Gillian Rhys

Images from mythology and religion are reworked within a current context to generate new images.  These images explore the human condition as we struggle to save ourselves from ourselves.     The aeroplane represents a modern day Leviathan; the transport for the modern day heroes travelling the world buying and selling the land and water.  Mary enters the works from portrayals of her in the Immaculate Conception, where she stands on the Serpent representing good conquering evil, the reward for which was going bodily off to heaven when she died rather than returning to the land.  My thesis is that she would roll up  her sleeves and get involved in our environmental crises rather than going off to heaven.  I'm sure she wouldn't go around standing on Serpents, mythic or real.  From PhD research into myths of the Serpent I translate it as the divine and uncontrollable energy within the earth, or as Joseph Campbell put it 'the earth's self moving power'.