At Kashi gallery in Fort Kochi, artist Catherine Stoll-Simon quietly sits in a corner. The walls of the room are adorned with her paintings in blue. The adjacent room hosts another set of her paintings in earthy shades, which are an extension of the blue ones. “They represent the worlds of sea and earth,” says Catherine, a French plastic painter and writer, who loves experimenting with mediums.
Her current project in acrylic, ink and found objects, talks about feminine energy and nature conservation. It is done in a unique style, which Catherine stumbled upon sometime back. “Do you see the patterns? They happened quite accidentally,” she says with a smile. “I was working on a canvas spread over a plastic sheet on the floor. I poured paint on it and let it dry. Once I took it off the sheet, I saw this pattern created by plastic on the rear side. I found it very interesting and decided to retain it,” she says.
Catherine is so glad that the technique aptly complements the theme — feminine energy. “Energy is unstoppable. We cannot control it. This pattern, which I couldn’t control from happening, substantiates that,” says the artist. “In this work, the only controlled part is where I drew images of goddess Venus, inspired from the pre-historic cave scribbling,” she adds.
The proportion of the figures is larger than normal. Ask Catherine about this, she says, “That is how they are seen in those drawings. They are faceless and bigger in size. The size denotes fertility and sexuality. These lines represent borders set by society for women.”
It is Catherine’s observations about women’s struggles across the globe that encouraged her to come up with this project. “In the recent times, we saw women coming out and speaking about their struggles as part of the MeToo movement. As a woman, I was glad to see women fighting for their rights. At the same time, I felt that something was missing in that story. The stories told were only about victimisation. I wanted to represent something big, wild and pure about feminine power. Hence this,” she explains.
What she tries to communicate is that finding feminine energy in oneself is equivalent to becoming unselfish and sensible. “Everyone, including men, have a feminine energy inside them. Once you find out it, you will learn to love the world and nature,” says Catherine.
Besides self-discovery, she exhorts viewers to be compassionate towards nature through her paintings. “Now, most of us live in cities. We are not connected to nature. The nature is in danger and if we don’t take a step now, we will lose it forever. For that, we will have to give up our luxuries, which is not an easy task. There comes the significance of feminine power. These goddesses are queens of nature and feminine energy is the medium to connect to nature,” says Catherine. “It is to bring this connection that I brought sea, land and natural objects in my work. Both the sea and land have been polluted by us.” Catherine hopes that her works would inspire minds. Like she says, it is a call for everyone to discover their feminine side, so that love will prevail.
