Veronica Reeves

painting the post-natural

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Terraform Necromancy

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painting by Veronica Reeves
Terraform Necromancy

Sometimes people ask me what my work is about and my gut reaction is, “I have no idea!” Depending on the piece, there is more or less tension between myself the creator and the piece as the creation. Terraform Necromancy is one of those pieces that continues to resist giving up its meaning to me so easily and this creates a psychological tension that I enjoy.

What I can say about this painting is that it began with a fascinating story I read about craters that suddenly appear in the Earth but without an impact event. Earth trauma and Earth processes are underlying themes in most of my work, and while painting Terraform Necromancy I wanted to juxtapose a feeling of innocence against a crater-like landscape. How do we heal planetary trauma? My heart is unsettled by the idea of terraforming other planets when we should focus on healing our own. It seems extractive, and an extension of rape culture, to consider terraforming Mars so that we can mine Martian resources to further human insemination of space. There must be accountability for our actions, a cosmic ethics. Bringing life to Mars is much like necromancy, Mars would be undead, which leads me to the title of this painting.

A View from Here: Elisabeth Jones Art Center

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Elisabeth Jones Art Center in Portland, OR, USA invited artists to collaborate on a project called The View from Here in response to a global lock down of communities. For this group exhibition local artists were paired up with international artists and asked to depict each others’ views. This was left open to interpretation. Jaggie Red Jar and I traded thoughts and images. Our paintings visit the realm of portraiture, borrowing images from each other’s social media.

This exhibition is viewable by appointment at Elisabeth Jones Art Center until September 20, 2020.

A portrait of Jaggie Red Jar by Veronica Reeves
My painting of Jaggie’s world.
“Vero” by Jaggie Red Jar

The Magic Cloak

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The Magic Cloak, April 2020

The Magic Cloak collaborative art project

Initiated in April 2020, The Magic Cloak is a collaborative project inspired by the mail art concept of an Add-and-Pass. An Add-and-Pass is a relative of the exquisite corpse from surrealist games, and mail art a non-commodity art form associated with Fluxus, noted for its playful experimentation with art.

What is an Add-and-Pass?

The Add-and-Pass begins with an individual who sends a piece of paper with a stamp, a doodle, collaged image, or other mark with empty space intended for other artists to fill. Sometimes there may be a framework or theme to act as a guide, or the recipient may ignore this completely. Generally, there are no guidelines. The first artist includes their name and address with an indication to have the filled Add-and-Pass returned to them by whoever deems it full, then sends it to a second artist. Each artist might include their address so that artists further down the line can add them to their contact list. The path of the Add-and-Pass meanders unscripted and may or may not eventually return through the mail.

Artists Add to the Magic Cloak

The aspects of the Add-and-Pass that are apparent in this project include primarily the physical passing of the piece from one artist to the next after each individual adds what they will. Typically the Add-and-Pass is on paper, or in booklet form, the additions made can be rubber stamps, drawings, collage, limited only by imagination. In The Magic Cloak, recipients expand this to fabric dye, paint, glitter glue, (and I’ll keep adding to this list as the project grows).

Magical Activation

In addition to having surface changes added to by the magical beings creating the Cloak, I have asked everyone to document an act of magic, to magically activate the cloak. This is open to personal interpretation. At the end of the project, my hope is to be able to share this documentation along with the new physical cloak.

The artists participating in this project each add their own magic to the cloak as it travels among them. In this way, the magic cloak is a spell of directed, collaborative energies, and the result is transformation of this humble cloth which began life as a curtain and will assume its re-birthed form by the end of the chain of artists.

This project began as a creative challenge that would hopefully reinforce a sense of hope and connection between artists during a period of lock down due to COVID-19, but when the social revolution against racism and police violence emerged it became apparent that this project also speaks to the power of collaborative transformation. Hanging over us is also the calling of the Earth for healing, a call for transforming our society to have renewed reverence for our planet and all life here with us. I hope that The Magic Cloak inspires artists and other magical people to direct their energy to a similar co-crafting of our society in a way that honors both the individual and the collective.

The circle of artists involved, in order of how they will receive the cloak, include:

  • Amy Bay
  • Rachel Rosenkoetter
  • Bre Gipson
  • Cassandra Lucine
  • Alanna Risse
  • Derek Watson
  • Kelly McGovern
  • Katy Zimmerwoman
  • Min Jung
  • Jason Berlin
  • Sean Barnes
  • Dan Ma

Cave of Intuition

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Finding my way through this painting was a struggle. In an effort to challenge my creativity I have been starting paintings with a very minimal sketch at most. This makes painting take longer because each move is discovered along the way rather than pre-mapped. I may still add some small changes and final tweaks to Cave of Intuition, but it is very close to being finalized.

This painting started out as Seven Sisters, in reference to the Pleiades constellation and mythology. Many creation stories point to the Pleiades as the origin of humanity, or humanity’s celestial ancestors. It doesn’t take much internet research to reveal there are communities of Earthlings who have identified which Pleiadian star they most resonate with and have ancestral ties to.

Aside from our cosmic lineage, I am also taken by the thought of seven sisters helping each other through life’s ordeals. I often look for ways to depict the power of the divine feminine, and for this I wanted to depict a group of effeminate figures collectively loving each other. Some figures are lost in abstraction, while others are more apparent in this celestial cave where womenfolk would gather to heal and create magic with each other.