New icons
"Magic rose into religious dogma and gradually succumbed, or is succumbing, under the attrition of modern science." (Odell Shephard The Lore of the Unicorn)
New Icons is about creating new magic, about the re-mystification of the ritual of body ornamentation. Barbara Heath and Sheridan Kennedy have created both non-wearable objects and body ornaments, investing them with new symbols and new values, drawing from a craft steeped in tradition and ritual.
Kennedy and Heath see body ornamentation as an affirmation of personal definition, a complex form of language touching on the visual recognition of status, power and beliefs. Through rationalisation and proliferation this visual language has become trite and meaningless. Jewellery today largely expresses fashion trends and "image" rather than personal symbols and momentoes.
Heath is creating contemporary symbols, markers to define oneself by or from which to define change. Symbols by which to physically anchor a displaced sense of self. Her Aids for the Hopelessly Inarticulate are large smooth surfaces layered with secrets and barely discernible signs. Her Flag and Marker pins speak of indicators one must always be searching for; their transparency and ambiguity contradicts their necessity. The series Satori Views are small windows; objects of enlightenment.
Following one from her Role Model series earlier in the year, Heath has shown four non-wearable pieces; small sculptural forms that play on paradoxes of contemporary female roles. She traces the formation of these roles back to ancient goddesses; Artemis, goddess of moon and hunt, is portrayed as virgin/sister/feminist/competitor in Snare for Artemis, while Aphrodite's Ladder expresses the conflict between lover and creative woman (Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty). Heath believes that we seek to model ourselves on
Barbara Heath, Aphrodite’s Ladder - brass, silver, 1987
