How Ophelia Survived

Oil on Canvas 4' x 6'

​

The painting below is called “How Ophelia Survived.” While Shakespeare's writing has never been my favorite, I still have a profound love for the character of Ophelia. The Ophelia archetype has interested me for the last decade, upon my very first reading of Hamlet as a teenager. This archetype--the bat-shit crazy girl, the tragic (non)virgin, the reckless soul too delicate and sensitive for this world--is what I have always identified with and it is what has always helped me through rough times. ‘Ophelia characters’ are the ones I always relate to, the ones I see asserting agency and pushing the boundaries of the archetype to become individualized, beautiful (yet sad) creatures. Pure beings. Apart from a desire to queer the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (and still celebrate Millais and Waterhouse), I wanted to do a piece just for myself.

Throughout the last decade, I’ve looked to the people/characters/feminine spirits featured in the painting and the parallels within our stories have given me hope to keep breathing. Lana’s music kept me brave enough to find myself in college/grad school. Cassie Ainsworth taught me about power 9 years ago when I had gotten myself too small to survive and ended up in the hospital for a few months. Kesha gave me a template in how to heal and to keep healing, despite people questioning your validity. Edie taught me to overflow beyond any shadows imposed upon me and to navigate an adult world where people eradicate things of beauty. Finally, to the victorian girl in pink on the left--be you Tess Durbeyfield, Maggie Tulliver, Jane Eyre, Helen Graham, etc.--you gave me an eye to question innocence and to define it in a way in which I can believe in it again.

 

The one thing that remains constant throughout my life is the nurturance and love I receive from feminine energies. There are dozens of these feminine energies, but this painting highlights a few. 

​

~Note: Feminism has been central to my healing in the past several years, but I can’t consider this a ‘feminist’ piece of art. It’s exclusionary in its portrayal of only white females of a certain size/age and any feminism that disregards the presence of colonialism or the variations of race, bodily-ability, class, body-size, etc. that construct humanity really isn’t feminism in the first place. It seems necessary to add that here. My choice to include these specific girls was personal, but as I go forward and strive to make my art be authentically feminist, thinking about these concepts will be critical. Just needed to say that :)  

These girls, these characters, these souls have given me a lot. Their sensitivity, their delicate nature, their precarity in life--that’s what I’ve related to so often, and for that, I’ve felt less alone. It has saved me time and time again. They’ve lifted me up from drowning. And that's a life lesson I have learned: we keep from drowning by relating to other people and empathizing with their stories.