VENUS VULVAS RAINBOWS retrieves and honours who we are as women, the untamed ageless knowing and holding her against our psyches as one who is both magic & medicine - The Wild Woman – the intuitive, instinctual, sexual and powerful primal life force that lives within us, no matter how domesticated we have become, how buried we may feel, and how challenging our lives are.

 

Venus a symbol of pleasure, the Goddess of love, beauty and desire. Vulvas a symbol of fertility and raw female sexuality, and creative power. Rainbows a symbol of unity, hope, new beginnings, wonder and mystery.

​

'… The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.' - Virginia Wolfe –

 

Diving into the depths of her psyche Melissa Mladin was motivated and inspired by the deeper messages in the Feminist classic Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Jungian analyst and author Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Melissa reclaimed and reignited her sexuality, power, intuitive knowing and an unbridled life force with freedom of creativity exploring new grounds, such as painting under the full moonlight and with non-traditional, at times uncontrollable materials. The low visibility meant she had to rely solely on her intuition and tap into the deep instinctual creativity within. Each time she knelt next to the canvas, she became present and at one with the natural energies, forces and currents we can't see. She was listening to her body and moving in an automatic way that felt divinely guided.

 

The work became an impassioned form of abstract painting, authentic and raw, exposing the depth and emotional core, the soul of the artist. Each piece expresses a symphony of human emotions, experience and drama, each tuned to their own frequency, resulting in something uniquely energetic. Colour, for which Mladins work is perhaps most known, explores a new deep, powerful palette of mahoganies, magentas, violets and indigos and attains the polarity of colourful luminosity with raw, earthy surfaces. Combined with shape, balance, form and composition, the conviction of these elements could disclose the presence of philosophical truth. The profundity of the paintings is linked by the artist to themes such as conflicts, contradictions, betrayal, pain, empowerment, ecstasy, mystery and the sublime. The large scale of the works seems to engulf the spectator, being proportioned to the human body and the artist's self-proclaimed "hot little messy human" sized body of self. When you stand before the work, you can recognise yourself inside of it, enter and experience it—a deeply personal immersive journey.

 

"This exhibition is dedicated to all the women of the world… To the reclaimed, liberated, empowered women expressing their sexuality and dominance and challenging social constructs. To the women not yet there but who dream and desire to be. To the women caged, imprisoned, and coerced, may they one day feel freedom. To the women in my life that allow me the honour of being a part of their lives as we journey through hard and happy times, bound together by music and magic. 

 

Thank you, I can't imagine life without you, love you" - Melissa Mladin.

​