Heather van der Breggen has a new art exhibit, “Rape and Honey” that is being showcased in Calories in Saskatoon, where it will be displayed during the month of August.
Before the exhibit was taken to Saskatoon, there was a private viewing of the series at the Sadhana Yoga Studio in Weyburn, followed by a meditation led by Sandra Veer, which included the paintings.
“The process of making art is always fluid for me, I start with a plan and then the work takes me to places I didn’t expect. This is the magic,” said van der Breggen.
“Originally I started out this series to express my feelings about consent. So much talk of the date rape drug made me angry. That anger banged around in my head. This has been going on since the beginning of time, the fear of calling it what it is, the deflection from the perpetrator to the tool used to accomplish abuse, which have changed from shear overpowering of one with no voice to alcohol and drugs. We teach our daughters to be wary and protect themselves … are we teaching our sons about control? Why was I so angry? I thought I was beyond that.”
“I decided to paint it out and looked at my own healing through the years with the help of the chakras, their colors and meanings combined with the psychology of colour. The plan was to begin with black, the absence of light, next the three lower chakra colors, then gray, the neutral point followed by the four upper chakras, then white containing all colors of the spectrum. They were not painted in that order; instead I was led by the colour, movement, words and sounds associated with each colour.”
“The first colour/chakra I was drawn to paint was the Root, next the Sacral then the Throat. No coincidence there. I was immersed in what was required now, to bring me peace.”
“Discovering as I went, I realized that these were universal strides in healing. Trauma happens and sends us each on a path. It affects us in different areas that we are often unaware of. Threads of it surface in how we treat our bodies, what we say to ourselves and others, our ability to give and receive love.”
“I found that like my creating process, healing is also many layers of fluidity. A continuum of flowing forward, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, instilling discomfort and peace, resulting in the sweetness of surrender and forgiveness,” said van der Breggen.
