Subconscious Spirit

Subconscious Spirit is a strange, dark and dreamlike journey into the places that exist just beneath conscious thought — where memory, fear, transformation and the unseen drift together like figures beneath deep water.

At the heart of the painting, a woman rests within the flowing current, her eyes closed as though surrendering to a dream. Beside her lies a skull — not simply a symbol of death, but a quiet companion and reminder of mortality, transformation and the inevitable shedding of an old self.

Above her, a fish drifts through the watery landscape, as though carrying a message from another realm. Yet another face emerges from the darkness on the left, staring directly at us. Sad and vulnerable, its gaze feels almost like a silent plea for help. In the shadows behind it, a mysterious cloaked figure watches from a distant world, while another older face appears in the lower corner, becoming an unexpected witness to this strange inner landscape.

The figures seem connected, yet separated — fragments of one psyche, each carrying a different aspect of the self.

Painted in New Zealand after the artist and her family had emigrated from South Africa, the work reflects a profound period of displacement and change: leaving behind everything familiar and entering an unknown world.

Subconscious Spirit explores the experience of embracing not only the new and the visible, but also the shadow self — the hidden, uncomfortable and unseen parts of ourselves that ask to be acknowledged rather than forgotten.

It is a painting about surrendering to the unknown, listening to what lies beneath the surface, and discovering that sometimes the strangest landscapes are the ones within us.