All of these images are drawn with pencil, pen, and brush & ink onto watercolor paper. They are then colored in photoshop. Below is my artist's statement for this series of work. Enjoy!
Sometimes I wake up from an incredible dream and wish that I could go right back. Other times I awake from a nightmare and am afraid to fall asleep again. This unpredictability is just one aspect that initially attracted me to creating dream imagery. The visuals conveying them are completely random and abstract. From an early age I was constantly recording my dreams and attaching meaning to their absurd nature. The fact that science today still cannot fully explain or understand why we dream and need sleep absolutely fascinates me.
With the use of pen & ink and coloring with digital media, I also use aspects of the unconscious in the creative process. It usually begins with an idea that is very simple yet surreal. As I constantly look for more images, strange juxtapositions present them selves and I am able to create an alternate circumstance. Often times, peculiar images will pop into my head at the most inopportune moment: right before I fall asleep. I suddenly force myself awake and quickly jot down the image with the pen and paper I keep on my nightstand. The rest of the composition unfolds from there just like a dream, haphazard and illogical.
My own explanation for why we dream is that it is our ‘id’s’ way of shedding light on our most basic feelings and socially unacceptable urges- terror, humiliation, vulnerability, communication, pure bliss, hilarity, and the list could go on forever. By keeping in check with this, I am able to understand emotions or issues that I would otherwise ignore by forgetting my dreams upon waking. Too often in the everyday world our unconscious is denied and ignored. However this is a part of who we are and it is attainable by simply being aware of it’s presence.
_Margaret Larabel_
oil on wood panel.
